


Magic Finds You

by Still_beating_heart



Series: Magic Is Kind Of My Shtick [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But the sex happens after he's of age, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead Claudia Stilinski, Eventual Sexual Content, Full Shift Werewolves, Good Alpha Derek Hale, M/M, Magical Accidents, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Magical Tattoos, Nemeton, Panic Attacks, Sheriff Stilinski's alcoholism mentioned, Soulmates, Stiles Stilinski Has ADHD, The Alpha Pack, The Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), There is kissing that happens when Stiles is underaged, but my own way, magical books, magical library, the pack lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 45,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25787683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_beating_heart/pseuds/Still_beating_heart
Summary: After his mom died, Stiles started walking in the Preserve. Well, it might have started as running away from the house, insisting to his dad that he could find her, he could find his mom and she was okay, it wasn’t her that they buried. It couldn’t have been her. It had to have been some kind of alternate version of her and the real her was safe, and healthy and happy, and nothing was ever going to happen to the real version of her, she was just lost or kidnapped or something, replaced by a clone or a robot. Because that was easier to believe than believing he’d never see her, touch her, smell her, have her embrace or her gentle smiles ever again. It was easier to pretend.His dad would always follow, never far behind, but far enough that Stiles could maintain the facade that he was alone. That he was on a mission and he was going to accomplish it. And maybe some of that blind childish hopefulness and imagination helped his dad too. Or maybe it just made it more painful. He’s never been able to ask that question.--------------Stiles has a magical book, visits a magical floor in the library and ends up with a magical tattoo.  Oh, and he accidentally fed the Nemeton for a few years.  Oops.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Magic Is Kind Of My Shtick [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012203
Comments: 95
Kudos: 502





	1. A Welcome Mat

**Author's Note:**

> So this was the prompt I found for myself:  
> Write about how two old bicycles are embedded in a tree – grown into it from years of being chained to it. Upon further inspection, your character finds a bottle in one of the baskets and in that bottle, a letter. They attempt to return the letter to its owner only to find someone else entirely.
> 
> And it just kind of turned into something a whole lot more than that...

A Welcome Mat

After his mom died, Stiles started walking in the Preserve. Well, it might have started as running away from the house, insisting to his dad that he could find her, he could find his mom and she was okay, it wasn’t her that they buried. It couldn’t have been her. It had to have been some kind of alternate version of her and the real her was safe, and healthy and happy, and nothing was ever going to happen to the real version of her, she was just lost or kidnapped or something, replaced by a clone or a robot. Because that was easier to believe than believing he’d never see her, touch her, smell her, have her embrace or her gentle smiles ever again. It was easier to pretend. 

His dad would always follow, never far behind, but far enough that Stiles could maintain the facade that he was alone. That he was on a mission and he was going to accomplish it. And maybe some of that blind childish hopefulness and imagination helped his dad too. Or maybe it just made it more painful. He’s never been able to ask that question. 

Stiles lost his mom when he was eight. Dad lost his wife of fifteen years while he still had more than half his life to face down without her, raising a son alone.

So Stiles knew for a long time that the bikes were there. They were there, and they had been chained to the tree for so long that they were grown into the tree. One leaning on one side of the stump, one leaning on the other. They were old school, with the baskets rotting away, with the high handle bars and the banana seats. One was blue and one was red. Once, they were red and blue. Now they’re mostly rust and chipped paint. But the bright colors cling to the little crevices in the last places that they’ll ever let go, kind of like Stiles’s mother. Clinging, so deeply embedded in him that he’ll never fully forget her. 

When adolescence hits, his missions in the woods shift. He’s no longer looking for his mother in some alternate reality, some space-time continuum, some magical corner of the woods where a shield has been placed that he’ll tear down some day. He’s not sure he believes that anymore, but he can’t quite seem to believe she’d dead either. Admitting she’s dead would be like admitting Elvis Presley is dead. Or those prisoners that escaped Alcatraz. Or Jean Grey. Or Wolverine for that matter.

While the missions into the woods are more about trying to find dead bodies by the time he’s a teen, there’s still something about those bikes that draws him in every so often. When he’s alone. It’s like his own little secret place to sit and think of his mom. Sometimes he talks to the tree that’s growing around the bikes, like maybe it has a direct line to wherever his mom is. Which is certainly not Heaven. Because who really truly believes that crock?

The tree’s brilliant Fall leaves are his favorite. Even if he hates Fall because Fall means school. And school means being the hyper loud weird kid that no one can stand to be around. Except Scott. 

But the bikes and the tree, these are the only things he keeps from even Scott. He couldn’t explain it even if he tried, the way it feels in his bones when he’s there, like the tree is more than just a living thing that’s living in an entire woods full of living things just like it. Too many living things in that sentence? Deal with it. 

Once, when Stiles was ten, he saw two crows sitting on the handlebars of the bikes. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, the sound of sirens echoing in the distance. And the crows just sat there. Like the bikes belonged to them.

In the Winter the tree is grey and damp all the time, rain falling down in cool sheets throughout the course of the holiday season. The time of year when not very many people would be sitting in the woods staring at two old bikes and communing with a tree that seems to be growing faster than any of the others. Kind of like Stiles himself. He’s been stuck in that puppy phase where his hands and feet are too big for his body for what feels like his entire life now. Someday he’ll be the majestic swan at the end of the fairy tale. But for now he’s just gangly and clumsy and, well, he’ll probably always be that way, who is he kidding? Even if everyone else in their entire high school looks like they walked out of a Vogue or something, Stiles is still just awkward and too much Stiles. 

In Spring, the tree is alive with birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and green buds, running sap that’s so thick and shiny it actually makes him believe that there is something brown in nature that his eye color could be compared to that might be mildly more appealing than a mud puddle. Though mud puddles serve plenty of purpose. And entertainment. And mosquito spawns. 

A mosquito trapped in amber. He wonders if there are ways to set the bugs free from their amber tombs. If they’re frozen there like Captain America or the bodies that are melting out of the permafrost thanks to global climate change that no one believes is happening, but the bodies that are melting out of the permafrost have cool things like plague. And he wonders as those melt, and old long dead animal carcasses too, if that’ll get into water supply and be the zombie apocalypse in real life. Or maybe if he broke a mosquito out of it’s amber trap, and resuscitated it, if it would rise from the long dead with something like West Nile Virus only worse. Well, it’s not like the mosquito, a single mosquito could really cause a full blown apocalypse. Could it? Well, seriously with all the overpopulation in the world and everyone piled on top of one another…

Then there’s Summer. Stiles likes to bring his mom’s favorite book, sit beneath the shade of the tree and read. He’s read it so many times he has it memorized and the pages are starting to wear, the ink smeared in some places from oil on his hands and that one weird rainstorm that he got caught in. That one time. And he knows, he absolutely knows, that when there’s lightning the tallest tree in the woods is not the best one to be under, but since his tree, this tree is now the tallest and it also has really cool leaves that are bigger and more water resistant than the rest of the woods combined, well, he just stayed where he was. And watched the rain pelting the forest all around him, but under his tree with the bicycles, he was dry. Except for that one tiny drop that catapulted itself off the ground and landed smack in the middle of his book.

And it’s not just a run of the mill kind of book either. Not something he’d be able to find in a bookstore were it to be replaced, it’s not like that. It’s old. Like leather-bound and old. And did he mention it’s not in English? Yeah, it’s not in English. He’s not even sure what it is, mostly symbols. And he used his google ninja skills to try finding these symbols in ancient or now cultures and never found any. So the reading is more like making shit up, but he remembers his mom actually reading it to him sometimes, in English, stories for real. Or maybe she was making shit up too. And maybe this is the stuff that made her lose her mind eventually. Or she summoned whatever robot/alternate universe version of herself when she got sick and she’s still in a different plane of existence right now finding a cure so she can come back and relive her life from seven years ago, like she can reverse time too? Who knows? This book could do anything if there was just someone out there who could figure it out, right?

So he even got so desperate one day that he went to the old creepy attic of the library where no one will go because it’s guarded by an old hunchback lady with yellow teeth, and he’s pretty sure they’re actually wooden dentures like George Washington’s but he’s never gotten close enough to see them for himself. Until that day, that is. She was really nice. Actually. The things a child’s imagination can do, all the rumors in Beacon Hills about this nice old lady stirring a bubbling cauldron under the full moon and chanting to rise people from the dead to build her army of zombies with, or maybe she just needs to free a mosquito from amber. Rumors? Or Things Stiles Made Up? Probably the latter.

Anyway, the old lady didn’t know anything, but she looked at him with this weird semi-smile thing and told him he could borrow whatever books he liked, he just had to be careful with a few of them and some might not even allow him access. So maybe she is rising a zombie army. Oh well, Stiles will not be a part of it. He doesn’t think so anyway. 

That first time in the dusty old attic of the library, he sat for hours on the floor, reading his way through everything that he could reach. Everything that was actually in English anyway. Oh and he learned a lot more about fantasy and supernatural beings than he ever thought he would, but he’s pretty sure these books are actually believing that they’re non-fiction. But there’s no way witches, werewolves and pixies are real, right? 

But once Stiles fills his head with something, it’s hard to un-fixate. Reverse fixate. Break the fixation. 

So the summer Scott was at some kind of father/son retreat thing with his useless dad who’s trying to get back into his life, Stiles spends basically the entire summer with some old lady with wooden teeth in the attic of the library. Reading symbols that he doesn’t understand. And sometimes the old lady will whisper something to him when she passes by. And turns out, she was right, some of the books just don’t open. Like they have pages and all that, but they just don’t open. 

Well, her teeth aren’t really wooden. 

Or maybe they are. But she makes mean blueberry muffins. And she always smells like cinnamon. So she’s probably not raising an army of the dead.

Or maybe she’s tempting them with blueberry muffins. And Stiles is unknowingly going to be the king of the army of the dead.

Well, it’s that kind of imagination that helps when Scott gets bit by a werewolf. Yeah. That.

So, he supposes those books aren’t really pretending to be non-fiction. They actually are. They are! Because Scott is a werewolf, complete with the awooos and everything. 

And suddenly Stiles hears wolves howling in the Preserve sometimes when he’s sitting with the tree. And the bikes. 

Oh, and then there’s Derek Hale. Derek Hale with his leather and his sexy car and his I-hate-the-world attitude. But he tries to teach Scott how to werewolf, which is weird, if he hates the world that much, then why is he trying to convince Scott he’s a brother? And this thing is a gift? 

Okay, so Stiles remembers that day in the woods when the whole thing smelled like smoke and the sirens were going for what felt like hours, he remembers his dad coming home smelling like smoke and polishing off an entire bottle of whiskey that night. He was mumbling something about arson when he was rolling sevens in his recliner while the TV played Sports Center but Stiles kept hearing whispering down the hall, coming from his parents’ bedroom and he was not about to acknowledge that little piece of information. He wasn’t. And he probably still isn’t going to. Not for a long time. 

Hell, fine. So sometimes he hears it. And it’s not really his mom, not the one that died. It’s the one that’s in an alternate universe, the one that still keeps tabs on him. He’s sure of it. Because it sounds just like her and it even says things that his mom used to say, like, “nie wywołuj wilka z lasu,” which translates directly to ‘don’t call the wolf from the forest’, or more commonly ‘don’t tempt fate’. She was always saying the weird Polish sayings to him when he was a kid. Or ‘stick you in a bottle’, “nabić kogoś w butelkę,” in other words ‘pull your leg’. Because, really, Stiles was kind of an asshole even as a child. But Mom knew how to take it all in stride, telling him not to tempt fate since he most likely will have five just like him, which never failed to make him cry. And obviously, Stiles was always pulling her leg, it’s the nature of the beast. Or the mischievous child. 

So whatever, he convinces himself that the whispers are just some kind of living memory thing that he’s conjured in his imagination to deal with the nights that his dad is piss drunk and rambling about a case when he really shouldn’t be overhearing details of grisly animal attacks or domestic abuse. And there was that one time that kid got hit by a car on his bike. And Stiles couldn’t shake the thing his dad mumbled about a severed head with the helmet still on, for like ever. 

And maybe he just blamed the whispers on still wanting his mother around, still wanting her there to guide him when his dad was too drunk to do it himself. When he was stumbling through life to numb all the shit he didn’t want to feel and the shit he didn’t want to deal with and the emotional anguish of losing the woman he loved, watching her fade in front of his eyes, and then raising their son alone. So maybe he gave his dad a free pass on forgiveness for that chapter of their lives. And maybe he was just glad they lived in a small town where Stiles could run away from home and end up in the Preserve instead of in the trunk of some car where he’d be human trafficked after he was beaten and defiled. Or something.

But now that he knows about the whole werewolf thing, he’s kind of wondering if he should have held his dad more accountable to him than he was to the whiskey. But that wasn’t really his job, was it? To keep his dad in line. No, it was his dad’s job to keep his son in line. And his dad was hurting and alone-ish, and probably scared and yeah. So it’s not a valid excuse for choosing the drink over the son, but Stiles gets it when he thinks about it hard enough. Stiles still had the belief she was alive, and she was whispering to him sometimes when his dad was drunk so that was enough. At least he never had to feel alone. Even when he was. 

So. There are werewolves and kanimas and hunters and an alpha that they set on fire. Yep. And there is that little attic in the library that the old hunchback of Beacon Hills keeps watch over. Not his greatest nickname there, but whatever. 

And one day, there’s a whole new set of problems that will make the locker room even more of a nightmare than it already is when his entire lacrosse team looks like they should be in Men’s Health or something. Like the teen version of that. And Stiles is still all Stiles and gangly and at least cross country helped him tone some lean muscles that are good for running obviously. Running from things like werewolves. Except he doesn’t usually run from them, he more runs with them. Or tries to keep up.

So this whole new set of problems. It all starts when the old lady whispers something in his ear when he’s leaning over his mom’s book, with a second book just kind of perched on his knee because he finally found one with similar symbols. The lady whispers it and for some reason, he repeats it. It’s like he’s been possessed to do so. Not really possessed, but compelled. Compelled to repeat it. And when he leaves that day, drags himself home to shower off the smell of moldy old books and lacrosse practice and school. Because, let’s face it, he’s not going to shower at school with all those fitness models. Okay? He’s just not. He’ll drive home with the windows open to the California air while he lets his pits dry out the natural way, and the sweat is dry by the time he gets to the library, and it’s not like old ladies have great sense of smell anyway, right? Right. 

Right. Well. Shit.

The shower was very nice and he might have indulged in some fantasies that have somehow shifted away from Lydia Martin in the last few months, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. He had a plan. A plan that included Lydia Martin even if she didn’t want to be a part of his plan, he’s stubborn. And he’s okay with long term planning to get to the proper end goal as long as he’s still allowed to apparently have mind blowing fantasies about a certain leather clad scowly red-eyed muscle bound hunk of, woa. That might be a new record for fastest jerking off session ever. And that might be disturbing the next time Derek pushes him against a wall or a doorframe or vehicle. Or a tree. Or seriously, if the guy pushes him up against anything ever again, he’ll have a lot more to deal with than Stiles’s fear. And by that he means a fear boner. Yep. 

Well it’s not like he isn’t just a walking erection all the time. Uh, it’s Beacon Hills, even the evildoers are packing some serious good looks and athletic bodies. 

Stiles spends some time checking over any facial hair growth in the mirror after his nice, relaxing shower in which nothing interrupted him with supernatural emergencies. Or girlfriend emergencies. Or identity crises. Or, wow, okay, so that was a really nice shower. He totally deserved that.

The problem rises, not when he’s checking for chest hair, but when he’s eyeballing his treasure trail and sure enough there is a problem. Not like a sprouting hair and an inappropriate boner problem, that’s just puberty, not a problem. The problem is, well, it’s a welcome mat. Or a lower abdomen tattoo. A welcome mat. And that is just, swell. That is swell. It is glowing, not like a real black ink tattoo put there with needles, not a red or orange or any color of the rainbow tattoo that is put there in a parlor by a trained professional. Or even one that was bought at half price and put on with a dirty needle in an alley somewhere. Or even one that was burned on by Derek freaking Hale in his loft after attempting to get a legitimate tattoo in a parlor and having it heal! 

Nope. Not that. None of those options. 

Nope.

This is. Well. It’s something alright. Stiles tries to wipe it off with a washcloth. And then with soap. And then with a washcloth/soap combo. And then with his fingernails. And he’s almost going to just head to the kitchen and get a knife and see if he can scrape it off with a damn blade because it’s not budging. It’s not budging! And every time his anxiety spikes, it glows! It glows. It’s like a mood ring embedded into his skin right above his pubic hairline. And maybe a little bit under it too, and maybe he should trim that. It’s not like it’s really that thick or anything, but it’s dark, he’s got dark hair and he can’t really see under it as well as he could if it was trimmed. 

He’s on his way to the kitchen, butt-ass naked and aiming in the direction of the knives when he hears his dad come home. Shit. His dad! Walking in the door! And if he scrambles back up the stairs now, he’s going to look guilty. He’s going to look like he was wandering around the entire house naked or he had a girl over and just hid her in the pantry. Or something. No, that’s wishful thinking, because there aren’t any cars or bikes or general modes of transportation outside that don't belong there and it’s not like anyone of the human variety could just jump off the ground into his window. 

Well, looking guilty is better than having his dad see this tattoo thingy glowing on his son’s lower abdomen like a damn beacon to his dick. Wow, it might as well be wrapped around his dick. That is, just, it’s lovely.

Lovely. Okay.

By the time he clatters into his room and realizes he left his dirty clothes and his towel and his book in the bathroom (so the book just kind of goes everywhere Stiles goes now, yes even the bathroom), his dad is already calling from the kitchen, “Stiles do we have to have a talk about when and where nudity is appropriate?” there’s an edge of amusement to it, like he just busted Stiles doing something that he suspected him of doing for a very long time, and it’s probably something he did as a teenager. Who wants to wear clothes anyway? Really? And by the time Stiles is old enough to own his own home, he’ll be squishy around the middle and won’t want to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror when he walks past it when he’s having a nude day. So, the teen years are the best years for nudity. 

“Sorry, took a shower, and got hungry,” he should be ashamed of how easy it is to lie to his dad. But maybe his dad deserves it for all the bottles of booze between them. What did he really expect? 

“Nudity in the kitchen is still off limits Kiddo. Even if you’re fresh from the shower.”

“Got it,” he’s standing with his back to the door, holding it closed were his father to decide to come up the stairs and open the door without knocking, knowing he’s probably still naked and all. And his eyes are stuck on the reflection in the window where it’s grown dark out and with nothing but the desk lamp on, he can see himself pretty damn clearly and wow, that is just a glowing sparkly blueish silver tattoo right there pretty much pointing at his junk. 

Shit.


	2. Green And Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning on Sunday chapters - at least two every week, sometimes more depending on chapter length and how far off the cliff the cliffhanger would be hanging... 
> 
> I'll try to add tags and/or chapter warnings as I go, but if I miss anything you deem pertinent, let me know. I don't do beta readers so be thoughtful when requesting tags/warnings. Missing a tag/warning is never on purpose, and I know inadvertently triggering a person is not a pleasant experience for anyone involved. 
> 
> There will be canon typical violence. I didn't do any research on proper terminology involving magic, and I'm not going to actually make up any ancient werewolf languages :) So apologies for anything offensive about that. 
> 
> The original pack is alive and well, but the Hales are all still dead, and so is Claudia. Those events will be referenced throughout.

Green And Gold

“You’re acting weird,” Scott has the audacity to tell him in school the next day. 

“I’m a weird guy Scott. That’s kind of my schtick.”

“No,” he smells the air around him, and makes a move like he’s going to just pin his nose to Stiles’s collar.

Stiles takes a step back, flails his hands in the air between them, “boundaries dude.”

His nose is still going, telling Stiles, “Derek is trying to teach me how to scent moods and stuff, but I don’t know,” he’s got that lost puppy look, “you just smell weird.”

“Uh,” shoving his nose in his own armpit, “smells like me to me. And Degree. Sans aluminum.”

“I thought that was a breast cancer thing.”

“Can never be too careful Scotty. Besides, men can get breast cancer too.”

“Oh,” he’s looking at Stiles like he’s a puzzle he can’t figure out, not that it’s different from any other thing in their lives. Scott’s not exactly the puzzle guy in their relationship. That’s what he has Stiles for.

“Wow Stilinski,” it’s Isaac who makes him jump nearly out of his skin when he walks up behind him, “you reek.”

“That’s what I said,” Scott agrees very enthusiastically. 

“Like anxiety,” Erica butts in, “and something else. Something,” and okay, she does stick her nose in his neck and it’s more scary than startling when she does it. He really wouldn’t put it past her to rip his throat out, “it’s earthy, but it’s…”

“Like Spring,” Boyd ends the sniff sesh with his announcement and all the other wolves look at him like he just said the wisest thing they’ve ever heard.

“So like mud and dead leaves rotting on the ground in the rain?” Stiles wonders.

“No, more like, right when everything is starting to bloom and it’s about to rain too,” Isaac clarifies.

“So like pollen and mud? This just keeps getting better and better.”

“No, it’s kind of like the feeling of Spring.”

“Nature’s first green is gold?”

“Something like that,” Isaac’s eyes flash beta gold for just a split second, enough for a tingle to layer over that welcome mat that is so not welcome on Stiles’s skin right now. Or ever. It was never welcome there. And yeah, it’s still there. It sure is. And now he’s going to have to figure out a way to get out of lacrosse practice. Cool.

——————

A dentist appointment. That’ll do it. He hasn’t used that excuse in awhile. So that’ll do it.

And then he’s going to find someone. Anyone who might have some kind of knowledge as to what this thing is. Maybe it’s a disease. Maybe it’s like some kind of thing that’s going to eat his flesh first and then his internal organs. And maybe he should see if he can find his mom, his real version of her in a different dimension, and see if she can help him make a clone of himself to suffer through a flesh eating disease while he himself lives on in a different plane of existence with his mother and they cure cancer together. Or lay around and eat grapes while they get fanned with palm fronds by people who have done evil in their real life. But that sounds pretty boring. He’d rather watch TV and eat Cheetos.

He’s in the parking lot, almost all the way to his Jeep when his fingers start tingling. Oh, really? A heart attack now? That’s great. That’s just great. Okay, fine, not a heart attack, it’s more like a panic attack, only not really, not yet. He still has time to talk himself down and get somewhere comfortable and just chill. And he can do that, but he has no idea why he’s about to have a panic attack right now and that’s even more panic inducing than the thought of a heart attack. Or a flesh eating tattoo disease.

Well here’s the thing about panic. A panicking person is not exactly of sound mind. So even though his sound mind would tell him to go to the library and talk to the old lady and see what the hell he whispered yesterday and if it had anything to do with this, how do they reverse it? But his panicking mind is parking the Jeep and taking off at full speed on foot towards the tree. And the bikes. And there are new branches growing out of it that weren’t here yesterday. 

By the time he gets to the tree though, he’s run hard enough and fast enough that any tide of anxiety and panic has been completely overridden by the endorphin rush of exercise. Real exercise, not deep breathing and yoga, which, sure it has it’s merits as well, but really, nothing like a good old fashioned heavy breathing and sweat fest to knock back the anxiety about twenty-seven notches and overwhelm a brain with fuzz and legs with jello so that there’s no chance of a panic attack. 

He plops down in the grass in front of the tree, feeling the beating of his heart starting to calm. Letting all the sudden use of his muscles start to tingle down to something that he should probably stretch out of his system. Allowing his breath to even back out and his head to clear and then just when he achieves a place of comfort inside his own mind, there’s “an alpha werewolf clad in work-out clothes and glaring at the world,” walking towards him. Great. 

He’s half crouched, but fully human, his eyes on Stiles like he’s prey. And Stiles hates that look as much as it just turns him the hell on and he should be worried about that, but he’s not. He has bigger things to worry about than this weird fear attraction thing he has for Derek Hale. And hopefully he can’t smell that, but Stiles is pretty sure he can smell that since that’s just the story of Stiles’s life.

Okay, and apparently he’s going to get in on the sniffing that the other wolves did, but he’s going to do it with a hand fisted in Stiles’s plaid shirt and he’s going to back him up against the tree to do it. And when his back makes contact with the tree, something zaps through his mind. An image. An image of a house on fire. He blinks, some words he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t know the meaning of whisper past his lips and Derek’s eyes flash red, his hand drops from Stiles’s chest to the hem of his undershirt and he yanks it up.

“Woah, hey, hands off, way too much liberty taken there on,” he’s trying to jam his shirt back down before Derek can see it, but it’s too late. It’s too late and the damn thing is glowing so bright now that it’s actually lighting up Derek’s face like a movie screen in a dark theater, “the touching,” he swallows hard, trailing Derek’s eyes as they follow the lines of the symbol under his skin that just magically appeared yesterday and is now reacting to Derek Hale. Of course it is. Ain’t life grand?

Stiles’s mouth is insanely dry all of a sudden, it’s very hard to swallow and he should have packed some water. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. And speaking of hindsight, why the hell did he end up here?! There were so many other options. And he ended up here! It’s almost like he wanted Derek to come stalking out of the woods on his own damn property and find him back here. At this tree that’s growing at an unnatural speed. With the bicycles he’s been making up stories about for years now. Origins stories, first adventure stories, first team adventures stories. 

Derek is way too close to his face. And even up this close he’s still flawless. Not even a clogged pore or a backwards growing hair on his face. Damn werewolves. And he was born that way! 

“So were you never like a wrinkled, squished head, red faced baby with cradle cap and weird old man hands and diaper rash and…”

“Stiles,” it’s one of those low warning growls that all the people in Stiles’s life have for him, not just the wolves. But it’s just so much more effective when red-eyed howl at the moon and bench press school buses Derek Hale does it. 

“Derek,” okay, so mildly more effective. There is nothing that can actually break Stiles’s snark . Nope, nothing.

“You should have said something.”

“Just did. I just said your name. And before that, I asked you a question. Because I was simply admiring your perfect skin since you’re so close to my face and all up in my personal space and I was wondering…”

“About that,” his eyes drop to Stiles’s abdomen quickly, then dart back up to linger on his face.

“Oh yeah. That. That’s just. That is just, you know, that is the thing Derek. The thing is, I don’t know what that is. And I wasn’t about to go advertising around town until I knew what it was. So…”

“Magic,” he says it like there’s no room for argument.

But, “magic, really?” tone flat, “there’s no such thing as magic Derek.”

“There’s no such thing as supernatural either Stiles.”

“Okay, so you’ve got a point,” remembering that Derek is entirely too close and still has his hands all over Stiles’s clothes, and there’s a breeze rippling across his bared belly; he attempts to peel Derek’s hands off him. Derek lets go willingly, takes a step back. He might not have the most incredible social skills bred into him, but the guy can at least take a hint.

Stiles straightens his clothes, and really, running in jeans was stupid. Now there’s sweat slimed to his skin and just gross chafing is happening and yeah, “at least you dressed appropriately,” he eyes Derek and his work-out clothes that are sweated all nice and neat up to his pecs and it’s just not fair to have that many muscles without looking like just a a total gym head, is it?

Derek is having a hard time with words. Not surprising. But at least this time it seems like a different hard time with words instead of his usual anger thing. It seems more like awe? Maybe? And the fact that his eyes keep dropping to Stiles’s midsection, and every time they do, that stupid tattoo glows. That needs to stop. As if his spacticness and general awkward boners weren’t enough? Now he’s got a literal beacon on his belly. Right above his dick. And it glows. Every time Derek looks at it.

Cool.

Derek all of a sudden sags down to the ground, leaning back against the tree that was just a stump not that long ago, and really Stiles should have questioned that. He’s the guy with all the questions and research, so that should have come as a natural thing to him to just research. Research in something that wasn’t his mom’s weird old book of symbols. Research somewhere that wasn’t the creepy attic of the library.

All the clues were there. Wow. So ignoring a problem until it goes away? It’s still really not the best way to deal with things. Damn it.

He’s sitting beside Derek with his back to the tree soon enough, and he’s going to ignore the fact that the tree is kind of arching against them, like it’s cradling them, or making a chair for them. Or maybe it’s just getting them comfortable before it envelopes them like the bikes. 

“Do you know who’s bikes those are?”

“No,” he answers it way too quickly to be the truth.

And Stiles is going to let that go. For now. Only for now though. Because Derek just told him he’s got a magic tattoo. Which means either the old lady gave it to him, or he gave it to himself. And that’s probably what he should be focusing on, “you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” but he’s so lying.

And Stiles is going to let it go. He totally is. For now, “are they…”

“Stiles,” this time it’s the very deep, low growl that means shut up or I’ll rip your throat out.

Stiles swallows hard, and waits. For so long. Forever. For Derek to start speaking. Or maybe like two minutes. Or less. 

“When did it show up?”

“Last night.”

“What did you do before it showed up?”

“Um,” didn’t jerk off in the shower, “I was um, I was at the library. The attic. Where that old lady with the hunchback and the wooden dentures…”

“What?” his face is turned towards Stiles now, brows dipped, eyes locked on.

“The attic where…”

“Beacon Hills library is one floor Stiles.”

“No it isn’t, dude, it’s like four floors. Has been all my life.”

“No it’s…”

“Okay, I’ll prove it to you then. Let’s go.”


	3. Magic Finds You

Magic Finds You

“Okay. Derek. Please stop looking at me like I’m crazy. Or going crazy, or,” his voice trembles, and he turns his face away, “I’m not my mom, okay?”

The library is exactly the way it’s always been. One floor. A tiny publicly funded library. Barely enough of a building to have anything more than historical non-fiction, a children’s section, and a romance section. Beacon Hills priorities are a little weird if they have a romance section but not a young adult section. 

Derek has no idea what happened to Stiles’s mom. But he gets the overwhelming impression that it wasn’t anything good. Based on Stiles’s sour smell that Derek doesn’t need a wolf nose for, and the set of his shoulders. 

He’s looking around the place now, chewing on his lip. Every time he gets too close to Derek, that tattoo sparks under his shirt and he tugs the flannel closer to hide it. How he could always be wearing so many layers in California year round is beyond Derek. Sure, it gets chilly in the winter months, and there are a few damp months in there that require a jacket. But right now, it’s way too warm to be wearing all that, much less going for a jog in the woods like that. 

Derek sighs, watching Stiles pace the entryway of the old building, like he’s going to start pushing on bricks and hope one is the magic entryway to some other dimension where books have wings and, “wait,” Derek clears his throat, remembering something his mother used to tell him, ‘you don’t find magic, it finds you’, “do you normally have something you bring with you? When you come here. Or something you wear?”

“Like a talisman?” he stops pacing, but his fingers are still doing all the annoying things his fingers are always doing that have just become background noise, almost like music for Derek whenever Stiles is around.

“Any object, anything that you always have with you when you come here.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he’s walking away and out the door, hopping down the steps, careening around the corner and out of Derek’s sight. 

Derek crosses his arms, and waits. He’ll be back soon enough, no sense in following him. Leaning against the doorframe, a young woman exits the building, she looks mildly hesitant when she realizes she’s in the entryway alone with a strange male, but then her eyes rise, he puts on a smile, pushes open the door for her. Derek knows how he looks to people. He knows he’s an imposing size, and his normal face is intimidating. He probably has a resting bitch face. He’s sure his active bitch face is much more effective than the resting one. He knows that he’s the kind of guy that most people wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley, but he’s also the kind of guy that when he gives off the right vibes, he’ll most likely just get checked out and the person will move along without saying a word. Which is exactly what this woman does, she looks over her shoulder at him for a moment, checking out his ass probably. And that is when Stiles comes flying around the corner, all long limbs and clumsiness, bowling into the lady, knocking her off balance, sending her books scattering around her. 

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry,” he’s got a hold on her arm, steadying her while he steadies himself. 

Derek walks down the steps to pick up the stack of books. Most of them romance novels, one of them the supernatural persuasion. She’ll probably blush when he hands them back over. He slides the biography on top, acts like he never saw the others, holding them out to her. She’s still eyeing Stiles, uncertain how to react to him. It’s a feeling Derek is used to seeing, but he’s certain the reason people do it to Stiles is completely different than the reasons they do it to him.

When he bends to pick up the book he was carrying, her eyes skirt the leather-bound thing in his grip, and Derek clears his throat, “sorry about that.”

“Oh,” she startles, not having noticed him while he was gathering her things, “oh, thanks, I…” her voice trails off, gaze darting back over to the book that Stiles is gripping towards his chest now.

Derek reaches out and grabs him by the arm, hauling him close to his side. He’s not sure what the book is, but he can feel it’s energy from here. When his fingers contact Stiles’s arm, the tattoo glows, he pushes the book down to cover it. Derek winces at the second-hand embarrassment, “sorry again,” he mumbles towards the woman, stalking back up the stairs with Stiles’s arm in his grip. It’s like electricity when he touches him. And Derek’s not stupid, he knows why. He knows what that tattoo means. He’ll be damned if he’s going to tell Stiles though. 

“Dude,” jerking his arm out of Derek’s grip when they get to the door, “I’m not one of your betas,” hissing from the corner of his lips.

Derek takes a few dramatic steps back and puts his hands up between them in surrender. Relief and a sense of yearning rushing through him simultaneously at the loss of contact. He wonders how much more intense that would be without fabric barriers between their skin.

Shaking the thought, keeping some space between them when he follows. There’s a warm wind and the smell of fresh baked cookies swirling around them. A glimmering trail in soft blue fog snakes around Stiles, he doesn’t seem to see it, only flails when he announces, “see, I’m not crazy,” with wide eyes and a mischievous smile. He steps back, away from the stairway that wasn’t there moments ago. 

There are images rising in Derek’s mind, things he thought he had long buried. With his family in that wooden box, charred wood, and the scent of burning flesh. He thought he put those images in there, and would never remember them. He’d never see them again, and sometimes it’s easier to just pretend they never existed. It’s easier to lose something you never had. 

His chest flutters, the familiar anticipation rising from his toes. This place his mother used to bring him. She’d bring them here on rainy Saturday afternoons. And they’d be let loose to explore every single book in the place. 

As he grew, as the tradition faded and they were all too old to spend Saturdays curled up in the library, as childhood wonders ceased to exist and were replaced by young adulthood and all it’s cynicism, the building became what it was. The building that was just a one floor library in the center of Beacon Hills’ downtown. An old relic of a past where books were printed on paper instead of the endless stream that the worldwide web offered. 

The images flood him with every step he takes. Chasing Cora down the aisles of the kids’ section, her brown hair flying behind her like a little flag of victory when she’d disappear around another corner in a maze of her own mind’s design. 

The next step is Nathan, sitting in the aisle between fantasy books. Dragons and fairies dancing off the pages while giant vines with beautiful yellow flowers tangled around the shelves. 

The third step is Lucas. Tumbling under the table, rolling under Mom’s feet in a ball of brown and white fur, his tail tempting him as his paws darted out to hold it captive. Only to shift into a fat happy baby moments later, tugging on Mom’s pant leg to get himself to standing. 

And the fourth step is Laura. Laura curled up on a dark red beanbag chair, an open book of Shakespeare balanced on one knee and the other a book of lore. Family history, ancient werewolf language. One knee for studying, knowing she’d be the alpha one day, the other knee for words worthy of holding on her tongue as she mouthed them silently in the quiet of her corner of the library. 

His knees are weak by the time he gets to the landing. Watching Stiles disappear around the bend and into the room beyond it. He can hear his voice, speaking in a different language. Not a different language, a language Derek has known his whole life. It’s only different for Stiles. 

The voice that responds to him is one he’ll always recognize. The Mistress of the House of Books. Seshat, like the Egyptian goddess. Or that’s what his siblings always referred to her as. He’s not sure what her real name is. And he realizes that’s a little silly, more than a little silly. She’s probably something traditional like Alice. 

She’s waiting for him at the top of the last flight of stairs. Her grey hair wrapped in a bun at the top of her head, a palm frond jabbed though it. She’s smiling. Her hands open in front of her, arms raised, “Derek, my son.”

He walks towards her until he has no other option than to embrace her. The first time, in so long, it’s been so long since someone has held him. He wants to give into it. He wants to melt into her and see if he can find the last traces of his mother’s scent on her. Maybe it’s still lingering on her hand, where she used to rest it in the crook of Mom’s elbow while they walked the aisles and spoke of old myths, legends, and ancestors. 

He feels something breaking inside him when she leans out, scanning over every line on his face with a worried expression that she’ll not voice, her dark eyes holding him steady for so long he’s beginning to think he’ll look down only to see he’s grown roots here. 

“The last,” she finally utters in their ancient language.

He knows what she means. The last of the Hale pack. The last of Talia’s. The last of the wolves of Beacon Hills. 

He nods, just barely, eyes darting away from hers when Stiles pipes up, “dude, you have to teach me whatever that language is, ‘cause I just keep repeating after her when she seems like she wants me to, and then I end up with, uh,” he gestures his hand over his abdomen, where it glints through his shirt when Derek’s eyes flit across it, “that.”

Seshat has a knowing smile when he turns back towards her, “he’ll do well by you. If you let him.”

“He’s probably too stubborn for this.”

“Stubborn is good when it comes to magic.”

Derek’s eyes shift from hers to Stiles, where he’s started wandering down an aisle of leather-bound ancient texts. They’re shuddering as he passes and Derek wonders if he can see that yet. If he can sense it. Or if it’s still mostly inside of him, waiting to be released. When Stiles’s pale finger traces the spine of a book and a tiny spark floats out, Derek remembers the way they’d tremble and shake under Nathan’s fingers, how they’d twist until they looked as though they’d crack or explode, then they’d burst into life. Creating a forest or a mountain or a fantasy cloud land. Growing into castles and rivers, lakes, oceans, winter mornings where the frost was delicate on the surface of brown leaves as they floated through the air. 

The old woman’s hand is cool, but it sparks heat when it contacts Derek’s cheek, sliding a tear off his skin and rubbing it in between her fingers, whispering, “heaven’s dew,” as she grips the inside of his elbow and begins to walk behind Stiles.


	4. Books In Flames

Books In Flames

So the whole point of this mission was to figure out why Stiles has a glowing welcome mat. One that glows even brighter when Derek Hale gives him the sexy feels. Like everyone pretty much gives him, he’s a teen boy, it’s just a thing. But the sexy feels he’s getting from Derek, and Derek only, are causing this damn magical tattoo to glow ultra bright. Awesome.

That was the point of the mission. Turns out, there’s so much more to learn here. Like what language is that? Why does Derek know it? Why are they both looking at Stiles like they’re conspiring against him? Or conspiring to use him as a weapon or drag him into the pack and never let him go. Not that he’d go join another pack anyway, he’s pretty sure most packs don’t have humans with nothing more than sarcasm and a baseball bat as weapons. Okay, so he has plenty more qualities than that. It’s just hard to tell sometimes when he’s surrounded by the things and people he’s surrounded by. 

And the other thing that’s distracting as hell, is that the whole library behind Derek is dancing in flames like he’s leaving a wake of fire. And Stiles is pretty sure no one else is seeing it. It makes him feel weird and sad, but kind of terrified too like what if the place actually did burn down? Except that this is apparently a magical place, so can it burn down? Are those magical flames that he’s hallucinating? 

Probably.

Maybe he should get his dad to get him in for testing at the good old hospital. So they can do a bunch of scans and tell him that he is indeed turning into his mom. 

Or maybe the magical flames following Derek are like some kind of secret window into his psyche. The flames are there because Derek thinks that he leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. 

At least when Stiles turns back around to face forward and walk around this aisle of books to the next one, he totally doesn’t catch the toe of his shoe on the bottom edge of the shelf and trip. Nope. Definitely doesn’t happen. Except that Derek his holding his arms to keep him on his feet. And that is, okay, well that is a tattoo that is practically reaching out and dragging Derek’s body towards Stiles. Like he’s pretty sure it’s going to sprout tentacles and wrap them around Derek’s hips to yank him in nice and tight.

Derek lets go like the contact burned his hands. He wipes them on his pants and Stiles wonders suddenly when the last time was that anyone held Derek’s hand. The last time anyone held Stiles’s hand was when his mom died. His dad did a lot of hand-holding that year when he was sober. There was a cut off time every day, a time when he knew he’d get grumbled at to just grow up and be a man about his feelings, but early in the day before the drink was poured, his dad did a lot of hand-holding. Stiles is a quick learner, it didn’t take him long to understand that when people say alcohol just makes people more honest, that they don’t know true alcoholics. They don’t know people who use booze to treat what’s broken in their brains. Because those people? When they drink? It’s not honesty that comes out. It’s that little whip of anger and pain, the anger and pain they can’t put words on but they want everyone around them to feel it too. They want everyone around them to feel like shit, because they feel like shit. Misery loves company whether consciously or subconsciously. Stiles doesn’t hold it against his dad. He just wishes it hadn’t happened. Is all. 

———————

Time seems to slip away while they’re in here. Just like it always does, there’s just too much at his fingertips and he gets distracted on his mission, jumps into another mission and comes out of the library well after dark. This time with Derek beside him. Stopping at the base of the stairs, the magical floors of it are still there, still visible to both of them. The old lady, Georgette Stiles decides, (and then no, not Georgette, but maybe Martha because Washington but then he can’t remember her maiden name and starts to think about how unfair it is that women are still just expected to off and change their names when they get married like they should just be so happy to get rid of that part of their identity). So Saraswati, like the Hindu goddess of knowledge, creativity, and speech. She is a shadow in a window and he wonders if her magical existence actually means that she’s a ghost. Or some kind of immortal being that has guarded the library for centuries. Or a library somewhere, anyway, since Beacon Hills isn’t exactly an ancient city.

“Well,” he rocks back on his heels, looking over at Derek, sliding the book down his abdomen to hide the sparkling and shimmering that’s happening, “I guess I’m not crazy. Or maybe we’re both crazy. But either way, I’m not alone and maybe I’ll see you in Eichen House,” he nudges him with his elbow and another spark jumps between them, this time landing on Derek’s neck, slipping under his shirt. Okay, and now Derek is going to have a sparkling, glowing tattoo. Please, please to all the gods, don’t let Stiles be alone in this! 

Derek just shrugs, like a firefly didn’t just climb down the back of his shirt and embed itself into his tattoo. Probably. That’s probably what happened. Or at least that’s what Stiles is going to assume.

“So, uh, how do I hide this thing?” he gestures with one hand over the book that’s hiding his welcome mat, “you know, in school and in the locker room and from my dad. My dad! Derek, my dad is going to kill me! And oh shit! It’s way past eight. I was supposed to be home at eight!”

He’s backing away from Derek as he’s talking, waving him off at the same time, shit, shit, shit. Dad is going to flip. This is the, this is like, the fifth time this week he’s been home late without a good excuse. And really, it’s only Wednesday so it hasn’t even been five days. Okay, so maybe it’s the first time this week. But it’s nowhere near the first time ever. He’s kind of really bad at being home on time. And most of the time, Dad doesn’t really care that much, he expects it. He knows Stiles isn’t good with time, and he’s really not good with time when he’s at the library, it’s been that way since his mom died. So his dad knows he’s there, and Stiles knows his dad has every deputy in Beacon Hills keeping an eye open for his weird son. So it’s not like he wouldn’t know immediately if something were to happen, or if Stiles was gone somewhere he wasn’t supposed to go. Other than the trips into the woods that get sidetracked into trying to find dead bodies, that’s something they don’t know about, since he’s always spent time in the Preserve since his mom died. 

Okay, so maybe his dad won’t flip. Maybe his dad will be calmly sitting at the table with a cold dinner half eaten, while the other half waits for Stiles. Who is always late. 

And when Stiles trips into the house and sets his mom’s book down on the counter, his dad only raises an eyebrow. A single eyebrow. So it’s okay, it’s all good. 

Mostly good, then, “a dentist appointment, huh?”

“I,” he begins, then ends, then waits. Knowing Dad isn’t done, and it’s his turn to talk until he’s done, but, “I had something, something came up and I… I just…”

“If this is about not being comfortable in the locker room,” he puts his fork down now, folds the newspaper that’s laying beside him and tips his glasses down on his nose, “we can talk about that. But I don’t want you giving up on lacrosse. It’s good for you. So is cross country. We’ve talked about sports and…”

“How it’ll help with the ADHD and the lack of friends, and the whole loser who spends too much time in the library and in the woods thing,” he finishes for him, collapsing into the chair to scoop a huge plateful.

“You’re not a loser Stiles.”

“No?” through a mouthful of lukewarm food, “I mean, I know that. It’s just…”

“High school sucks.”

“Yeah. It sure does.”

Dad studies him for a long moment, exasperated fondness written all over his face that is always there when he looks at Stiles, “should I ask where you went this afternoon if it wasn’t practice and it certainly wasn’t the dentist? Your appointment is next month.”

“Oh Dad, about that…”

“You’re going. It’s just a check-up. There will be no drills. Unless you have a cavity and then there will be drills the next time. So, get out that floss.”

“I floss. Every day!”

“Every day?”

“Every…” he trails off, shoves another bite in his mouth, “good dinner. See? Food doesn’t have to revolve around red meat and curly fries. But curly fries, now that’d be delicious. Do you know who’s bikes those are?”

“Hmm?” he’s pushed the paper open again.

“The bikes in the tree in the Preserve.”

“No,” he sighs now, removing his glasses completely to rub his eyes vigorously, leaning back, hands behind his head when he’s done. The look of ‘we’ve been over this a hundred times’ all over his face.

“Yeah. I know. It just, it seems like, never-mind. It’s stupid.”

Dad’s silent for a long time, waiting for Stiles’s train of thought to derail and check into a new station. But it doesn’t. Because now his train is solely focused on getting as much food in his mouth as possible in the shortest amount of time possible.

Dad’s sigh breaks the silence after a long moment, he pushes his chair out of the table, sets his plate in the sink, “dishes are all yours.”

“Yep,” through a mouthful and big thumbs up.

He doesn’t leave the kitchen though. Leaning against the counter to watch, it’s pretty rude to just leave him here alone to finish his meal, but it’s not like Stiles was really there for the family meal at the time he was supposed to be home.

Oh, about that, “the woods first, then the library.”

Dad sighs, planting his palm firmly on Stiles’s shoulder, “alright. Can you finish eating without choking?”

“I’m a professional, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah,” patting his shoulder in that rough loving way he does that sort of moves Stiles’s whole body, “I know,” he leans down to kiss the top of his head, “I’m worn out. I’ll see you after practice tomorrow. Practice that you are going to.”

He gives another very enthusiastic thumbs up as Dad heads towards the stairs, while he shoves his last bite in his face.

“You know, I’m here. And we can talk. About anything,” he offers when his hand lands on the banister and his eyes land on Stiles again.

“I know,” and he does know. But he also knows a magical glowing tattoo is not exactly best served with dinner. 

“Okay, good night son.”

“Night Dad,” he puts on his ‘good son’ smile and waves a hand at him. Watches that fondly exasperated expression until it disappears up the stairs, then gets up to wash the dishes. In the meantime, checking out that welcome mat to make sure it’s still there. Yep, sure is. Great. 

———————

“What is it?” Scotty sits down on his bed, being careful to whisper since he already warned him that his dad is home and it’s way too late to have your best friend over for a nightly check-in. One perk to having a werewolf friend or seven? They can sneak in the bedroom window very very quietly. Which, of course has him thinking of Derek and how easily someone like Derek could sneak in a bedroom window and he wonders if Derek could also very quietly deflower Stiles in his bedroom and that’s not the point. 

“I don’t know,” flailing his hands at the question, because it was what he led with when he said ‘hey dude, you’ve gotta check this out but you have to be quiet and I don’t know what it is or how it got there, but you need to help me hide it’. So why is Scott asking what it is, when he clearly said he doesn’t know what it is already?! 

“It looks like magic, if magic was real. Did you talk to Derek?” he asks it with suspicion on his face, like he still doesn’t trust Derek and he still doesn’t want to send any questions his way, but he’s starting to warm up to him simply because he knows a lot more than Scott does and has been teaching him, “or Deaton?”

“I sort of talked to Derek, but sort of didn’t. Um, I guess…”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means Derek saw it, and we went to the library together and he knows the old lady, Scott, but he didn’t exactly tell me what it was other than magic. And…”

“Is that what that smell is?”

“Derek? Um, it might…”

“Magic. Is that the smell of magic?” and now he’s sniffing the air. What the hell has Stiles’s life become?

“I guess. Okay, but all I really need from you is to help me hide it. I can figure out the magic part, I just need some time. And someone to help me hide it. In the locker room. And at school. You know, um, like be my human werewolfy shield.”

“Okay,” he agrees easily. And that is why they are friends. Because Scott always agrees to the weird shit without asking too many questions. Well, weird shit like this, he’s not always good at seeing the big picture and agreeing to the most logical ways to handle things, but he’s good at this. This I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine, kind of thing. 

“Derek’s not a bad guy, you know,” Stiles mentions it nonchalantly, like he does all the time lately. And yeah, sure, Stiles thought he was the bad guy when they first met. Like _the_ bad guy, not just a bad guy, but now it’s different. Can’t judge a book by it’s hot, broody, leather clad cover. Or it’s pushy and aggressive binding either. Apparently. Okay, so Derek has a lot of pages in his book, and Stiles is certain once he gets a chance to read through all of them, he’ll have the full story and it’ll be so much more than some short story of eyebrows and attitude. 

Scott looks at him like he thinks Stiles is up to something, which, he pretty much always is, so it’s not weird to get that look from anyone really, but he’s actually not up to anything right now. Except trying to get Scott to trust Derek. Though it’ll probably be harder to get Derek to trust Scott, but it’s not like Derek is that bad of a guy and he’s not that bad of an alpha, he just needs betas who are not hormonal idiotic teenagers with dark pasts. Actually, the ones with the dark pasts are pretty loyal to him, so there’s that. It’s just Scott. Scott who wants the whole world to be black and white and simple, Good and evil and nothing in between. Even though he still wants the evil to be redeemable. Who doesn’t, really? Want that, want to believe that there is good in every person and creature in the world. It’s human nature to believe everything has good in it. Isn’t it? It just gets lost somewhere along the way, probably usually in the clutches of puberty when everything good gets lost and is replaced by hormones. And also through the jading process of learning things about your parents who you used to worship. Or in Scott’s case, having the guy leave you. After the whole thing that no one talks about.

Okay, so that. And sure, Scott has Allison now to do the hugging, but Stiles still needs someone to do the hugging, so he opens his arms to Scott, “hug it out bro, then go home and get some sleep while you think about how you’re going to help me hide this thing,” by the time he’s done talking, his words are pretty much directly into Scott’s ear, which is good, maybe it’ll somehow get past all the obsessive thoughts about Allison that drown everything else in his life out at this point. 

“Night dude,” Scott pats his back and disappears through the window just as quietly as he came.

———————

Stiles definitely doesn’t jerk off that night, while watching the tattoo and how it reacts to the images of Derek’s muscled body that are running rampant in his brain. Interesting. So the glitter and shimmer even reacts to his mental images, not just the actual physical presence of the man.


	5. A Wolf In The Wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief mentions of Derek with an unnamed female (there's not actual sexual content, it picks up with the morning after, and she doesn't have any lines or even any descriptions of her appearance), it's in the first section.

A Wolf In The Wild

Derek’s not thrilled when he wakes up next to a woman the following day. He’s not proud either. He hates himself even more after the fact, after the thrill of the chase, after using the sex appeal his parents or nature or whomever blessed him with. The same way he used it on Erica when he offered the bite. He’s not proud. But it fills the aching void that is his life. If only for the moments of tangled limbs and tangled sheets. By morning it’s nothing more than a chore to have to take care of, getting her out the door without being a total prick, but enough of a prick that she never comes back, doesn’t expect his number. 

Derek hasn’t told anyone about full-shift. About his habit of running through the Preserve at night on four legs. About how every time he stops at the creek to take a drink, he sees his mother looking back at him from the flowing reflection on the surface, backlit by the moon. And he knows, she’d be so disappointed in him.

He hasn’t told them about how he shifts and runs. He runs to try to leave it all behind, to shed his own skin and maybe never come back. Never put on the skin of the man he’s lived in for twenty-three years now. The skin that’s never been comfortable. No matter how much he forces himself to make it look that way.

He hasn’t told them about how the pull of nature, the pull of Earth and the moon is so much stronger when he’s full-shift. He hasn’t told them. He doesn’t want them to see it. He doesn’t want anyone to see it. He’ll never live up to the form like his mother, or like Laura did. 

This morning, it’s too late. By the time the woman leaves, he’s got all three betas smirking at him. Loitering around the kitchen of the loft, in different stages of dress for school.

“You’re all going to school today,” he announces, leveling each of them with a steady glare.

Boyd nods, Isaac shrugs and Erica rolls her eyes. But no one speaks. It’s once they’re out the door that he gives in. He gives in to the pull inside him. The anger, the frustration, the empty hollow feeling that he can’t fill no matter how hard he tries. He puts on his running clothes and shoes, makes like a human until he’s near the old house, near the old remains of his family, near the scent of smoke and the sound of screams that he’ll never be able to erase. And he strips. Leaves his things tucked against a rock that’s out of eyesight from a trail. No one will find them unless they’re looking. And the only three people who would ever look for him now are in school. 

He strips, tilts his head back, arches his shoulders and cracks his neck. Chanels the feeling in the pit of his stomach, finds that anger. Anger at himself, at his mother for dying, at his father for dying. Anger at his brothers for never growing up to be men. Anger at his sisters for never turning into the women they were meant to be. Anger at Peter for being the only one who survived. Anger at Kate, the boiling rage that makes his teeth ache. 

When he opens his eyes, he’s fully shifted and he’s running. The shade created by the trees dancing in the breeze flying by him too quickly to identify the difference between hues. The trees just a blur of green and brown. Low branches and whips hitting him in the face from time to time, slapping his shoulders. Old leaves from last Fall under foot, slippery corpses of Autumn. The remaining bits of the old house barely register as he bounds past the grounds. The echoes of roars and howls dampered by the sound of his heavy breathing. 

They trapped them with mountain ash. And they killed the mages first. Magic is easy to destroy. One must only kill the source of it. Wolfsbane bullets and arrows from there. And fire.

He flares his nostrils and forges on. Letting himself get lost in it. To just run. If he’s spotted in the woods in California as a full wolf, nothing will bother him. He’s an apex predator after all. The worst that could happen is a tranq and a tag that he’ll have to remove later. A poacher’s bullet would do nothing to him. 

———————

He’s not sure how far he’s gone, but it’s late afternoon when he finally turns around. Heads back south, back towards home from wherever it is he is now. 

Dusk is falling by the time he enters the Preserve. He passes the remains of the old house, letting himself stop for a long drink at the creek. When he scents the air he smells it, he recognizes it immediately, but it’s too late.

Shit. It’s Stiles. 

He pinches his eyes closed to his reflection in the moving water, the dusky hues of grey over the picture of his face, his mother’s face, Laura’s face. 

He won’t know. Stiles won’t know. He’d have no reason to even think it. He didn’t know werewolves existed until Scott was bitten. He has no reason to know full-shift is real. Derek’s never told him.

He makes certain not to startle the kid. If that’s possible. And he makes certain not to look directly at him. He can hear him, crunching on sticks underfoot, tapping his fingers on his legs as he walks. Humming and occasionally speaking words. Words that he doesn’t know the meaning of just yet.

Derek feels his mouth curl into a smile. The kid will either be the most powerful mage to ever exist, or he’ll get himself killed long before he’ll figure out what he’s doing with the energy in his veins and the words in that book.

He’s certain exactly when Stiles spots him, a spike in his heart rate and a muttered, “oh,” his footfalls halting completely then backing up slowly, the muted feel of confusion when he stops short in his backwards steps, “um, why am I glowing? Why am I… Derek? Are you back here?”

If Derek was a wild wolf, he’d slink away at the sound or scent of a human. Especially wolf out here alone. He’s not sure what Stiles even knows of the natural behavior of wolves, if he’s spent a lot of time in the woods then his natural curiosity has probably proven a good enough reason for him to research every type of animal that has ever been spotted in the Preserve. And it’s Stiles, so probably even many animals that have never been see here. But could possibly, one day be here. Derek sighs, he’s fighting a losing battle now. Stiles has probably also researched everything he could get his hands on as far as supernatural beings since Scott got bit. 

“No, that’s stupid. I don’t even know for sure if he’s the only one that makes the tattoo glow, so,” he starts taking slow steps backwards again as Derek lifts his head away from the stream. Tilting it to make a show of the wolf in the woods knows there’s a human nearby, so the human should make a smooth retreat now. 

Human is Stiles though. And Stiles makes no smooth retreats, even if he tries to. He stumbles and then when Derek turns his head, he squeaks, stills, his heart jumps and he takes off running. 

Okay, well, this is going to turn into a lesson now. Derek darts after him, snarling and snapping at his heels as soon as he’s in reach.

“Oh my god, oh shit, oh, oh I’m not supposed to run, am I? Oh shit, I’m going to die, I’m going to be the next animal attack in Beacon Hills that my dad will have to explain, except he won’t have to explain ‘cause he’d be explaining it to himself, oh shit, I’m sorry Dad, shit, Dad’s going to be so,” he trips, the book flutters out of his hands, falls open to a page with dust swirling out of it, heading up the base of the tree it’s fallen beside and snaking up towards the canopy. The leaves rustle, the bikes embedded in the tree croak with the sway of the strong base of it. Of course, of course, Derek realizes too late what this tree is. And he realizes too late that it’s Stiles that has been feeding it energy for nearly a decade now. Giving it the power of growth and energy. 

The tree groans and branches start falling to the ground, wrapping around Stiles in a make-shift cage. Spiking into the ground right in front of Derek, barely missing his paw. He takes a step back, another spear darts into the ground at his side.

Shit. Stiles looks as surprised as Derek feels when his eyes venture that way, the dark brown of his irises an exact match to the bark of the tree that’s encasing him now. Those eyes wide with wonder, watching Derek intently as he begins to shift back to human, just in time to holler, “Stiles! Stop the spell!” before a spear flings itself out of the tree and slices through a few layers of his bare flesh, “close the book,” gasping, hands flying up to grab the next spear out of the air as it whirs towards his head, “take a breath! Stiles!”

Everything pauses, the boom of energy that Stiles is feeding the tree gets stuck in the atmosphere and sounds like a clap of thunder as the magical breeze shifts through the Preserve. It’ll register as nothing more than a random wind gust to the weather service station down the road. 

Derek falls back to his butt in the dirt, after spending the day in full shift, it’ll take awhile to heal, and he has no idea how a wound from a Nemeton will effect him. He’s certain he won’t have the energy to shift back and run home any time soon.


	6. Spirit Spot

Spirit Spot

“Derek? Um, Derek, a little help here?” Stiles watches his fingers wrap around the wooden bars of the cage that just fell from the sky! and trapped him in it! while Derek was apparently a wolf! like a real wolf! Well, he’s seen weirder things in the last year or so. Really. Sort of.

“Okay, Derek?” he drums his fingers on the wooden pillar, “gonna need some help big guy, so how about you heal that gaping chest wound and come over here with your big manly werewolf strength and break these bars?”

“You put them there,” he finally responds. He’s stark naked. By the way. 

“So, um, how long you been able to do that? The whole full-bodied wolf thing? Is that an alpha thing or something?”

“No,” he’s just laying there. That lazy bastard. 

“It’s just a scratch Derek,” even though it looks like someone hacked at him with a broadsword, and oh that is just, nope, it’s too much to look at directly, “just heal it and get me out of this thing before those little panic spots in my peripheral grow into,” Stiles trips over his own breath.

“Breathe Stiles,” it sounds weak. Since when are werewolves weak? Since when does it take them this long to heal? Since when does Stiles have the power to throw spears out of a tree at a wolf, when he didn’t even mean to, and he didn’t even want to hurt it and he would never actually intentionally hurt an animal in nature, and oh, oh shit.

“Derek, did I magic you into not healing or something? Help me out here big guy, I’m…” scared, terrified, afraid, worried, horrified? Any of those things. All of those things, “shit, Derek, just heal!”

He shouts it, his voice kind of echoes and booms up the length of the tree he’s caged in, a few leaves shake down out of it and land on Dereks stomach. Bare stomach. Bare and rippled with abs and streaked with blood that is so gross. And Stiles is stopping there, because it’d be impolite to stare at the guy’s junk when he’s laying there bleeding out and Stiles is pretty sure he caused that. And yeah, the spots in his peripheral are starting to jump into the center and collide to make even more spots. There is so much pressure on his chest right now he’s certain that the tree must be trying to envelope him, pull him into it’s bark to live forever. 

He’s going full fledged panic attack, isn’t he? While Derek bleeds out in the woods. And his dad is going to find him here, or a deputy is going to find him here and then he’s going to have to explain it and oh, oh Hale, his eyes snap open a few times, blinking rapidly as the sound of wood cracking around him starts to filter through the buzz of panic, and Derek’s voice, “breathe in. One, two, three. Breathe out,” crack, “one, two, three,” pop, “breathe in,” snap, “one, two, three,” this is different than snap, crackle, pop. Because it was crack, pop, snap. Okay? It’s different, “Stiles?”

He blinks and this time he can see that the cage is broken, broken enough to slide out, Derek is standing in the spot he’s just created. Naked as a jay-bird. Or whatever that is. And the gash in his chest is still there, still open, but not as deep as it was. His hands are up, palms out towards Stiles like he’s waiting for an okay to touch him. Stiles nods, and Derek’s big hands land on his chest, the pressure is okay, it’s different than panic pressure, it’s grounding and it’s okay. It’s past the point where a human touch would make him panic harder, so it’s okay. And Derek knew that, so he waited. When his hands don’t spark anything else by landing on Stiles’s chest, he slides them back, around his ribs, landing squarely on his shoulder blades and pressing, guiding him the rest of the way out of his cage. 

“Okay?” his eyes are so brilliant, so hard to look away from once Stiles is brave enough to make contact with them.

He feels himself nod, and Derek’s hands disappear from his body. And okay, the weird snaps and panic balls that like to collide and burst in his eyes, those are mostly receded at this point, something else entirely is glowing. Glowing so bright that it’s lighting up Derek’s entire form. Still naked. Yep. Still naked. 

And Stiles is going to need that book, not just to cover the problem that is glowing under his shirt and pants, but also the problem that is growing in his pants. Wow. Okay, “so, um,” he leans to pick up the book, planting it firmly over both problems he’s having and has no control over apparently, “that was fun, huh?”

Derek shoots him a very dirty look, but he can’t quite hide the smile that tugs upwards at his lips. For just a flicker of a moment. Gone again just as quickly. He plops down in the dirt and leaves, leans back on his palms, eyes taking in the tree in front of him, studying it intently, the eyebrows are reading all kinds of concentration.

Stiles takes the moment to check him over. Over. Not out. There’s a difference. And that chest wound is not healing as quickly as it should be, “so, uh, did I tell the tree to spear you? And why isn’t it healing?”

Derek’s gaze is still on the tree, kind of a faraway look, completely un-self-conscious about sitting there naked. Cool. That’s still really cool. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles it, because apologies are hard, okay? They’re hard. Even when they’re necessary. Especially when Derek’s gaze finally meets Stiles’s. That’s a breath knock-out if he’s ever had one. 

Okay, so with wolfsbane, they burn the wolfsbane and pack it in the wound. Stiles can do that. He plops the book down next to Derek, almost puts it on his lap to conceal his junk, but hey if the guy feels no obligation to cover his gorgeous self out here in the woods, well, then who is Stiles to tell him otherwise? 

The trusty lighter that he always carries in his pocket now, since last time he needed to burn wolfsbane and shove it in Scott’s leg, and a leaf off the tree. Two. Actually, make that two leaves. He’ll use one as a plate for the one he’s going to burn and hopefully stop himself from burning his hands before he pushes that smoldering magical leaf into Derek’s gaping chest wound. 

Yep, that’s the plan.

And the plan is a go. It is a go. And Derek doesn’t even grab his wrist when he reaches for him. He does flinch, but only a little when Stiles pushes a burning leaf into his chest. 

“Ta da!” he pats himself on the back when the wound closes, Derek’s eyes are closed. Probably because of the whole pain thing. But the wound is healing. So, ha, suck it magic tree spear! 

“You’re welcome for saving your life there big fella,” he pats his hand down on Derek’s thigh, which, really, is probably not something he should do when he’s still naked. It’s far enough down though, far enough away from his junk, close to his knee. 

Derek doesn’t snarl or growl or even glare at him, so he takes it as a win. A big old win. 

“So, you, um know anything about all this?” removing his hand from Derek’s leg to generally flail at the entire scenario.

“A little,” his eyes skirt over Stiles’s legs, and they stop on the glowing tattoo.

“Care to share?”

“Not really,” he sighs, like the whole wide world is resting on his big brutish shoulders.

Maybe it is. Fingers drumming on the book grab his attention, but Stiles wonders before he can open his mouth, “is it the book? Is it me? Is it the tree? Is it Saraswati? Is it…”

“Saraswati?”

“Hindu goddess of knowledge, come on, keep up,” he snaps his fingers in front of Derek’s face.

Derek bats them away, and there’s that glare Stiles has come to know and love, “Seshat,” he mumbles.

“Oh, so we’re not so different you and I? Naming our imaginary library friend after some ancient goddesses.”

“Mistress of the House of Books,” he shrugs, “it was Laura who,” his voice trails off. And he lets it disappear.

“I, um, well,” hand rising to scratch the back of his head, “never apologized for that whole thing. I mean, that was shitty of us to, you know.”

“It’s fine,” it’s resigned, like he just thinks it’s something his family deserves, or maybe he deserves. A sister’s grave basically desecrated. After her own uncle killed her to bait Derek back to Beacon Hills.

“No, it’s not fine Derek. It’s not fine,” turning his head, staring holes into the side of Derek’s face until he finds a way to turn and focus on Stiles, “it’s not fine. None of that was, and it’s not fair, and it’s not your fault either, okay?”

So Stiles knows a few things, that well, he wishes he hadn’t had to ask Peter for, but he did. And as much as he mostly doesn’t trust Peter to be in anything for anyone more than just Peter, he knows a lot. And Derek isn’t exactly an open book, so getting information out of Peter (even if it’s bent to his will and arrogance) is just easier. 

Derek’s eyes are lingering on Stiles’s face, expression unreadable. But he’s not arguing, and maybe that’s a good first step. Though maybe he’s still high off adrenaline and stuff from almost getting stabbed through the heart with a magically sharpened spear. 

“So, not that I’m complaining about you being here naked or anything, and I mean, I spend enough time in a locker rooms to not care, nudity is just nudity and all, but uh, aren’t you getting cold?”

“I’m a wolf.”

“Yeah. That. About that?”

He sighs, watching Stiles for a long time, debating the truth for awhile, then finally admits, “I’ve been able to do it since birth. It takes more focus, it’s only a born wolf thing. It’s not something a bite can do.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

He shrugs, “it just, it doesn’t make a difference for them. They’ll never be able to do it.”

He’s keeping something back, Stiles can tell, but he also knows this is a lot of sharing for Derek in one sitting. Or in one week, or maybe one lifetime. So he doesn’t press the matter. Maybe he’s growing up. Or he’s tired. Bone tired now that he thinks about it. 

“Alright, let’s get out of here before it gets any later,” Derek announces as he gets to his feet.

Why is he on his feet now?! He’s on his feet and the part of his body that is at Stiles’s eye level, yep, that’s, holy shit, that is one bright tattoo, “damnit,” he curses himself out, tugs the book over his midsection and drags himself to his feet, “so all that scenting stuff? Can you smell…”

“I don’t need my super-nose to know you have an erection.”

Stiles is pretty sure his entire face is just on fire, completely on fire. Not just a blush, no, because a blush would be cute and pink and rosy. It is fire! Pure embarrassed…

“You’re a teenager.”

“And I, it, you just…”

“You’re a teenager Stiles,” it offers little room for argument this time but Stiles is not one of Derek’s betas.

“A boner is not a normal boy reaction to a naked man that’s…”

“It’s not exactly not normal either,” he shrugs.

“So, you’re saying I’m not the only one?”

“Huh?”

“Who gets unnaturally turned on by you.”

“It’s not unnatural Stiles,” he turns his back and starts trudging off into the woods.

“It’s Isaac, isn’t it? Isaac gets awkward boners too, doesn’t he?”

“You are all teenagers, every single one of you gets turned on like every thirty seconds. When I’m in a room with all of you, it’s like hormone stew.”

“And it’s all directed at you,” Stiles mutters, even though he knows what Derek is saying, yeah, while mildly disturbing how many scents of horny the guy is surrounded by at all times, and not to mention how people his own age must smell when he’s around, he’s like having an underwear model step right out of the pages of a magazine and into your life. 

Derek ignores the last comment. Which is probably a good thing. And Stiles reaches down to adjust himself in his pants while he follows Derek through the Preserve. Why is he even following him now? He should just get back in the Jeep and head home. That’s what he should be doing, “Derek?”

“Stiles?”

“If it’s a born wolf thing, does that mean that Peter can full-shift?”

“No.”

“But it’s…”

“Son of an alpha.”

“Oh. So could all your siblings do it too?”

“The wolves. Yes.”

“K. Just checking. And I won’t tell anyone, if you’re worried,” he mimes zipping his lips even though Derek’s back is turned. And Stiles is totally not watching his ass, and his back, and the way his muscles frame in that tattoo, and why couldn’t Stiles have ended up with a tattoo on his back or something, not this beacon on his crotch that is always pointing at Derek of all people, “my dad is going to figure this out eventually,” a spirit spot like Derek's, that would have been fine, not this damn welcome mat.

“Well, if he figures it out, then he’s one step ahead of us isn’t he?”

Okay, so point there. Maybe Stiles should just tell him. But then, what if he has a heart attack? He’ll wait until he’s eighteen. And then at least if he has a heart attack and dies, Stiles won’t have to look for a guardian. Yep, he’ll wait until about a year from now. A little over a year from now.

“Okay, so there were non-wolves?”

“Yes.”

“How many,” it’s unsteady ground, he knows that, it is crazy to assume that Derek will want to talk about his siblings who died in a fire that his psychotic girlfriend started, “siblings did you have?”

“Four,” it’s kind of gruff, but for whatever reason, (maybe Stiles is magicking him into it, or maybe it’s the whole walking around the woods nude thing that’s still happening) he’s being really open right now, “Laura and Nathan were older than me. Cora and Lucas were younger,” he pauses for a long moment, Stiles can practically hear him grinding this teeth to bring himself some sort of physical pain as he thinks about them, “Nathan was homeschooled. He had too much magic in him to go to public school. Cora was home sick, yeah, insert joke here about wolves not getting sick, but every kid deserves,” his breath shakes now, “a mental health day every once in awhile,” his voice is getting thick and Stiles expects him to stop there. But he forces forward, “Lucas was only four. He was, Mom’s body was wrapped around him and Cora. He was so small,” this time the quiver in his voice extends through his shoulders.

At least Stiles know he’s not a sociopath, since his boner has finally gone down. That’s a relief. But damnit, what is he supposed to do with all this information? It’s not like all the other information he can just pin to his board in his mind and connect the dots to solve the case, it’s not like that with Derek. 

There’s a long drawn out silence and Stiles finally decides on, “sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah, me too,” his voice is so quiet, Stiles can barely hear it. He comes to a halt finally next to a tree that’s near the old house, the charred remains that he forced himself to live in, probably to punish himself with all the smells of his dead family. Stiles’s body shudders, and something new happens, the tattoo glows a soft white. Oh, cool, sympathy flowers are white. White for peace, purity, and love. Awesome. So now that tattoo is a mood ring. Cool. Maybe it’ll just grow itself a bouquet of white lilies and hand them over to Derek for all the sympathy Stiles feels for his suffering. 

How quaint that would be.

At least Derek is getting clothes out of the tree. And putting them on. Not that it does much for covering his body, he could wear a giant trash bag and it would still be obvious that he’s cut.

Stiles expects Derek to take off, run back to the loft, leave him in the dust. Instead he takes off, at regular person speed. And leads Stiles right back to the Jeep. And then he gets in. The passenger seat. And taps the roof with his hand that’s resting outside the open window when Stiles doesn’t get in right away.

“Derek Hale is not done with me yet,” Stiles mumbles to himself, aiming it towards the tattoo that’s still glowing a soft white. What a sap that thing is. Wow.


	7. Number One Rule Of Stiles

Number One Rule Of Stiles

John Stilinski knows he’s not a perfect parent. Hell, somedays he’s not even sure he’s a good parent. He’s made a lot of mistakes, especially following Claudia’s death. He could have been there, should have been there, when Stiles was crying himself to sleep at night. But instead, he turned to the bottle to drown his own emotions. Maybe he’ll always hate himself for that. 

But he also knows there is no such thing as a perfect parent. So he’d be an idiot to even try. All he can do is try to be a good one.

He’s knows a thing or two about his son too. And no, it’s not as much as he thought he’d know, it’s not as much as he wants to know, but he knows the number one rule of Stiles. It’s been the same rule since he started moving, when he was about three months old and realized he could simply roll himself across the floor to get whatever had struck his fancy. Baby-proofing? Yeah, right, it was clear from the start that the kid would un-baby-proof anything that they baby-proofed. Always into one thing or another. It was best to just put the toxic stuff where he couldn’t reach it and let him have his way with all the things he could reach. Tossing towels out of the drawers in the kitchen, by the time he could pull himself up to the drawer with the serving spoons in it, they were added to the mess. The pots, pans, cutting boards. The kitchen always looked like a tornado had gone through it. Every day was a new opportunity to reorganize it. But he’d always find whatever his little heart desired, no matter where they put it.

Number one rule of Stiles: if he’s quiet, he’s up to no good. 

John heard him sit down on the floor after he went up there, after dinner was eaten and the table was cleared. He’s pretty sure he had some food wrapped up and shoved in his hoodie pocket. John almost reminded him not to leave crumbs in the bed.

Then he heard the window slide open, and closed again. Scott McCall has been getting awfully smooth in his route up the trellis and into Stiles’s room. But he’s not as smooth as he thinks. John knows the only reason they sneak around is because they both have a curfew that neither one of them will follow. And at this point, they’re close enough to young adults, as adult as any almost senior in high school can be, so if they want to choose not enough sleep then that’s their’s to deal with. As long as Stiles’s grades stay up, then he’s doing fine. Picking battles wisely is what John blames it on.

But now it’s dead quiet in Stiles’s room. John is half wondering if they climbed back out the window. But he’s certain his son would never make it down the trellis without at least making noise. Most likely falling off of it and cracking his head off the porch. 

John’s quiet on his way up the steps, Stiles isn’t the only one who knows where the squeaky stairs are. He slips down the hallway without being detected. The door is open a crack, peering inside he can see Stiles sitting on the floor. Claudia’s old book in his lap. A flashlight in the pocket of his hoodie, glowing enough to light up the book pages in the dim light thrown off by his nightlight. 

He never did understand that old book. Claudia always said it was her great-great-great-grandmother’s, but it certainly wasn’t written in Polish. She admitted to not knowing what the symbols of the language were or how they were spoken, but she loved to feel the pages and make up stories to go along with them. It was how her and Stiles passed a lot of time together when she got sick. Probably even before that.

Stiles took to carrying it around with him after she died, something he thought the kid would grow out of eventually. But he supposes there’s no harm in carrying around an ancient book. At least it’s not an old worn out baby blanket. 

He can see his son’s mouth moving, quietly, no words coming out loud enough for John to hear. And then he bursts out laughing. Laughing unrestrained. A sound John hasn’t heard since Claudia died. It’s beautiful. 

The laugh that responds is not Scott’s. It’s a laugh that hasn’t been used in awhile, almost like the owner of it forgot that it existed and is trying to find a way to make it sound the way he remembers. It strikes John in a way he can’t describe, thinking that a person in his son’s room has lived enough to have a rusty laugh. He cranes his neck, taking the opportunity when they’re both laughing to push the door just slightly further open, just enough to see the other face sitting opposite Stiles on the floor.

His eyes close themselves at the image, even if it’s a beautiful image, the two of them sitting cross-legged on the floor with smiles and laughter around them, a book spread out to encompass both of their laps. Pinching the bridge of his nose, as images flutter through his closed lids. Images of Derek Hale. Standing with his sister in the woods at the edge of the property, holding each other, while their childhood home was engulfed in flames. It was different for them, it was different than any other emergency John has ever responded to in his years wearing a badge. Two children, but the expressions and the way they held themselves and each other together, it was like two adults standing there. Two old souls, bracing each other for the life they were about to lead. There was vengeance in the eye of Laura. Derek’s hand had been wrapped so tight around her arm, there were certainly bruises left behind. 

And later, when they were sitting, distraught, at the station. Silent and stoic, internally raging. 

How in the world did John ever let himself for even a moment think that Derek was guilty of the murder of his sister?

He pinches at the bridge of his nose, slides his fingers over to rub his eyes, waits for the chiming of laughter to die down, and then pushes the door open.

“Dad,” Stiles flails off the ground, Derek is to his feet in one smooth motion. An expression like he’s not sure whether to jump out the window or push his way past John to run down the stairs. But the expression is clearly one of flight, not fight. 

He puts his hands out in a placating manner, the motion stopping Stiles’s mouth from moving, instead tucking his bottom lip into his teeth to bite down on whatever the excuse about to tumble out of his mouth.

“It’s bedtime, Kiddo,” is the simplest thing to say right now, leveling his son with a look before turning his focus to the Hale kid, “Derek? A word on your way out?”

“Sir,” he doesn’t try to argue, or jump out the window, he nods solemnly at Stiles and moves past John when he sweeps his hand out to motion him through the door. Stiles is pleading with his eyes, and flailing something with his hands, trying to be silent. John’s fairly certain he’s trying to communicate something along the lines of ‘please don’t shoot him’. John narrows his eyes at his son, pulls the door shut, and follows Derek’s broad shoulders down the steps.

“About the Lahey kid,” John starts when Derek’s feet are solidly planted in the entryway.

His eyes rise, holding John’s steady. Nothing exits his mouth.

“He’s been living with you?”

“Yes sir.”

“It’s John. And we’ve not been able to track down any family for him. He’s six months away from eighteen, which means he needs a guardian. And soon.”

His brows rise, eyes widen, words forming and then slipping away.

“I can get you started with the paperwork if you come down to my office tomorrow. Say noon?”

“Noon,” he stumbles over the word, the idea starting to sink in slowly. The kid is far from dumb, but the thought of someone wanting him seems like a far off concept to him, “I…”

John’s hand rises, it lands on Derek’s shoulder. Jesus, the kid is solid, he clamps down tight on the muscle there and wonders if he’d ever be interested in wearing a uniform to work, “noon it is,” releasing his grip, pushing the door open and nodding towards the street. Derek is on the bottom porch step when he calls out, “cream and two sugars, son.”

“Black!” Stiles hollers from his bedroom window, “he’ll take his coffee black! And I better not see or smell any trace of donuts!”

Derek’s shoulders move with a chuckle, the yellow glow of the streetlights silhouetting him before he disappears soundlessly into the night.

John doesn’t turn to go back inside until he hears his son’s window shut. He takes his time moving back upstairs, knowing Stiles will be in a panicked rush to brush his teeth, get his pajamas on and get in bed like nothing was ever out of sorts to begin with. So he gives him the time. When he pushes the door open once again, the kid is next to the bed, tucking Claudia’s book into the shelf by his nightlight, “Derek’s not a bad guy Dad. I know I caused, well, Scott and I caused kind of a mess and um, but he’s not a bad guy. Once you get passed the leather and brood,” he fidgets with his hoodie for a moment, decides to leave it on with his pajama pants.

John pulls back the blankets on his bed, jerks his head towards it, waits until Stiles lays down. When he sits beside his son’s hip, the kid lets out a giant yawn. This is how it’s always been. He’ll deny the crash for as long as possible, but when it hits and he finally gives in, stays still for thirty seconds, he crashes hard. 

“Besides, physical age and emotional age are,” it gets interrupted with another giant yawn, “Derek’s probably like nineteen emotionally.”

“Probably more like sixteen,” John surmises.

“Like a part of him never grew past the fire?” his eyes land on John’s, that same contemplative and empathetic look that Claudia used to have.

“I’d imagine.”

“Is it okay? That he come over sometimes? He, I guess, knows the language in Mom’s old book. So he’s been teaching me. Sort of.”

“As long as you don’t get sidetracked by this project and forget you still have a few more weeks left of school, and as long as he’s out by curfew. And also, make sure he uses the front door, and eats dinner when he’s here for it. You don’t need to sneak food up to your bedroom.”

A half nod response, eyelids growing heavy, head sinking further into the pillow, “you ever go to the library?”

“Of course. I never could figure out what kept your mom so entertained there for so many hours.”

“So you’ve never been to…” it trails off, his lids stay shut for a few breaths.

“You can turn off the flashlight, son,” John leans forward to press a kiss against his forehead.

“Yep, that,” but he makes no moves towards the pocket of his hoodie. 

Oh well, what’s a battery anyway? John tucks the sheets up under his armpits, thinks he’ll probably wake up sweating with flannel pants and a sweatshirt on, so he cracks his window before he leaves. Stiles is sound asleep by the time he makes it back to the door. Flat on his back, lips parted. By morning he’ll be sprawled half off the bed with most of his layers ripped off. But for now, he’s calm. John’s certain he could watch him sleep for hours, but he won’t. Not now that he’s nearly an adult. He remembers Claudia lingering in the doorway, a gentle smile on her face when he would finally pass out for the night, she’d tell John, ‘I love him always, but I love him the best when he’s sleeping’, and John couldn’t help but agree.


	8. A Gravedigger's Son

A Gravedigger’s Son

Isaac jerks awake when he feels Derek’s eyes on him. Long before his alarm is set to go off. Or not very long at all, but every second of sleep seems imperative at this stage of his life. He groans, but not too much, knowing this is not his father, but this is his alpha and maybe it’s bite-stinct to feel a little on edge when the alpha is standing in the doorway with brooding brows, watching a man sleep.

Eyes mostly sleep-fogged, he still catches his pants when they’re thrown his way, “what’s happening?” brain coming back to reality, out of dream world, knowing if Derek is standing in his doorway, then there must be some danger nearby. But he doesn’t smell weird in that way. He smells weird in a Stiles type way. So anxiety then.

“Get dressed,” and he’s gone.

By the time Isaac stumbles out of the bedroom and down the spiral stairs that he’s certain Stiles is going to fall down some day, Derek is already in the kitchen, fully dressed in his running clothes, glaring at the coffee pot like it’s out to destroy him. He must have already gone running judging by the amount of sweat stains on the back of the shirt.

“How early do you get up?” Isaac wonders, slipping into the chair at the table. Instantly perking up when a steaming cup of coffee is placed by his elbow, along with a bowl of oatmeal littered with fresh berries.

Derek never answers that question. Taking the seat across from him, he eats the first half of his own breakfast in silence, throwing the occasional glance at Isaac, trying to gauge his mood maybe, “how’s school going?”

“Fine. I gave you my last report card.”

“I mean socially. Not academically.”

“Oh,” he shrugs, eyeing Derek as nonchalantly as he can, which he knows is stupid, Derek can read everything about Isaac without him saying a word so trying to be sleek with him is just a waste of time, “why?”

“Just wondering,” clearing his throat, wiping a napkin across his face, the sound of stubble on paper. When will Isaac’s badass facial hair come in? Or is that a born wolf thing?

“It’s almost over for the year,” he settles on. It’s better than it was, when his dad was still alive and he was a gravedigger’s kid. But it’s still high school.

“Do you,” he clears his throat again and Isaac is certain he’s never seen Derek nervous before. His eyes skim across the table, the mostly empty breakfast dishes, then land on Isaac’s, “you need a guardian. And I was wondering if it would be okay if it was me.”

“You?” he can’t help the incredulous tone, “I mean, but, why? Why would you, uh want me?” his voice weakens to barely above a squeak by the time he finishes the question. His dad made certain his whole life to remind him that he was worthless, so why would someone like Derek Hale want to be his guardian? 

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I,” he starts, a flutter of nerves tangles up his stomach, clogs his chest and breaks his windpipe. His voice lost to the rampage of thoughts, the never ending reel of words on repeat that his father spoke to him.

Suddenly Derek’s hand is on his shoulder. Squeezing gently, “think about it,” the hand rises, slides through Isaac’s hair and lingers at the nape of his neck until he nods.

“I don’t have to. Think about it, that is,” turning in his chair, eyes locking onto Derek’s that are mostly green right now, “if you want to do it, then I want you to.”

A smile lifts the corners of his mouth, crinkling his eyes slightly, gaze unwavering from Isaac’s face while he nods, “I’m meeting with the sheriff today to see what paperwork I need to fill out. I just wanted to check with you first, make sure it was okay.”

There’s a hesitance in Derek’s voice, his focus remaining on Isaac, like he’s waiting for Isaac to back out, to run away, to tell him he’s a bad alpha and bad friend and he’ll never be able to fill the role of guardian to a teenage boy. Instead of using any words, Isaac’s body acts for him. Pushing out of the kitchen chair and stepping right into Derek’s space to throw his arms around him. 

Derek takes a deep breath on contact, and Isaac thinks it’s probably the most awkward hug on the face of the planet since neither of them are exactly used to giving or receiving hugs. He wonders when the last time Derek hugged his sister was. He hopes it was the last thing they did before she died. And Isaac never had a sibling, he doesn’t even know if it’s appropriate to hug him, or when to let go. But Derek’s hands are warm when they land on his back, they’re strong and his grip is tight. It’s safe. It’s what hugging a father should be. Isaac wonders if he had that, if his own father had ever hugged him when he was a kid, if he had that solid steady presence in his life.

“Does that mean he gets to call you daddy now?” Erica’s voice floats down the spiral staircase, with the sound of her high heeled boots clacking down each step.

Derek backs out the embrace like it was something that never happened, grabbing the empty dishes on his way to the sink, “don’t you have someone who misses you somewhere Erica? Like your parents? Or your first hour teacher?”

She stops beside Isaac, leaning her cheek on his shoulder for a moment, “I don’t think I do,” tapping her manicured finger on her chin like she’s in deep thought, “nope. No one misses me. Can I call you daddy?”

“No.”

She huffs out a sigh, crosses her arms over her chest but shuts up when Derek shoves a bowl of oatmeal at her. 

“I’m showering,” he low growls it on his way up the stairs, “you two are getting to school on time.”

“Yep,” Isaac responds.

“Yes Daddy,” Erica purrs.

“Erica,” it’s his I-mean-it growl. The one that makes all the other betas cower, and some of the humans, and any of the living things that Derek has ever growled at. But it makes Erica preen and smirk. 

She shrugs at Isaac, “he’ll warm up to it eventually.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My head cannon is that Mr Lahey's day job (no way a public school swim coach job would pay the bills) was at the cemetery and he made Isaac do the actual work.
> 
> Next week is going to bring a couple chapters with more action :) Thanks friends!


	9. Raiju

Raiju

The whole town is shimmering, lights dancing like an Aurora when Derek looks out the window of the library. The library where Stiles is sitting on the floor in the corner next to the ancient oak desk, his fingers glowing when he flips a page and a tiny dragonfly flits off of it. His face softens, mouth opens in wonder as he watches it fly away, dissipating into thin air before it reaches the fluorescent light. 

“Mostly nature magic,” Derek tells him. Arms crossed over his chest, watching the streets below through the globe of blue and silver between them and the real world.

“Like I can manipulate nature?”

“Mostly,” he shrugs, watches the old lady sweep the floor. She’s listening, but she hasn’t spoken a word to either of them, like she can’t even see them, only hear them, “it’s late Stiles. Let’s go.”

“But it’s Friday.”

“Yeah. But it’s late on a Friday.”

“Dad’s on nightshift.”

“Doesn’t matter. You still need to sleep.”

He sighs, closes the book that’s on his lap, dragging himself to his feet and tucking his mom’s book under his arm. The tattoo on his abdomen glows, bright enough to envelop them both with warm dancing flames in blue, tinged with red.

“What’s the red mean? Desire?”

Derek shrugs, telling himself and Stiles, “your desire to stay here in the library and be a pain in my ass about leaving is strong.”

“The force is strong with this one,” he smirks. 

He’s beautiful. Pale, delicate skin dotted with human marks of beauty. Bright eyes, filled with wonder and deep imagination. His mind is more powerful than even he realizes. Derek wills the thoughts away and steps around him to exit the room. 

The stairs echo with every step they take, the place quiet like a tomb. Quiet enough that he hears the whispers clearly, the language of his kind reverberating off the walls of the winding stairwell as it melts, flattens, elongates and shifts into nothing more than cement and brick and asphalt. 

They’re outside and the air is heavy with oncoming rain. Electricity zapping through the sky, a low rumble of thunder on the horizon.

“Aren’t you supposed to be scared of thunderstorms Big Guy?” Stiles smirks.

“Dog jokes aren’t funny.”

“They so are though,” his eyes are twinkling. 

Derek is silent enough that Stiles eventually shoves his free hand in his pocket and rocks back on his heels, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?” tucking his bottom lip into his teeth. If Derek can feel the electricity, then so can Stiles. 

“Does it hurt?” he wonders before he can tell himself not to, tilting his head towards the tattoo that’s strobing now.

“No,” he shrugs, tugs his shirt down even though it hadn’t ridden up, “just tickles, I guess.”

A deep inhale through his nose reveals the scent of lemon water in the air between them, mingling with the rain and revealing Stiles’s anxiety. Derek jerks his head towards the sidewalk, taking the steps towards the Jeep, getting in without a word.

Stiles takes a moment before he joins him, the smell of lemons starting to thin already when he wonders, “where to?”

“The pack is at the loft. We should probably tell them about this.”

“Oh, this? Like this?” he flails towards the tattoo and encompasses the book and the whole Jeep in general.

“The sooner they know, the sooner they can help you hide it when you’re in school. And maybe help you learn control.”

————————

It doesn’t happen that way though. They’re driving down the road, two lanes of slippery rain-slicked and misty pavement. Fog so thick it’s blanketing the headlights and Stiles is creeping down the road. Slow enough that he barely taps the brakes when something steps out in front of them, and he’s at a complete stop.

The thunder rumbles louder, loud enough to shake the ground beneath them. A bolt of lightning cuts the sky in half, burns through asphalt and shatters the Earth. Derek blinks, shields his eyes and his instincts kick in. Shifting as easily as breathing, darting out the door of the Jeep. The blue and white wolf, lightning crackling it’s coat at is walks down the road in front of them. 

The wolf itself is harmless. Just an embodiment of the storm. It’s whoever is behind the wolf that’s going to be trouble. 

Derek crouches on all fours, baring his teeth and snapping at the charged air between him and the burning blue wolf. Raiju sniffs the air, scenting Derek on the breeze. His snout opens and his howl exits his body as thunder. Loud and foreboding. This close, enough to make Derek’s hackles rise, the disturbance of air deafening him momentarily. While Raiju has his head tipped back, Derek charges. Running full speed and sliding in low to take out his footing. The immediate contact jolts electricity through Derek’s body, knocking his breath out, making his head spin and reality slip. Time becomes foggy, his teeth feel like they’re floating and his body is slow to respond. He rights himself just in time to be tackled by the wolf in flames. It torches his skin, the smell of burning hair enters his nostrils, so much for the wolf being a harmless embodiment of a thunderstorm. 

He feels the teeth sink into his side, sharp and burning, entering layers of fur, skin, and flesh, grazing along a rib and puncturing his lung. 

“Derek!” it’s Stiles. Stiles who Derek should have told to stay in the Jeep. Stiles who’s tattoo is brighter than the lightning cutting the sky to shreds above them. 

Raiju wasn’t thinking clearly when he bit down. Leaving his own neck vulnerable to Derek’s teeth. He twists, uses Stiles’s presence as a distraction, and clamps down on the blue and white electrified wolf. Sinking his teeth past tendons, muscles, and directly into his jugular. He feels the spark of blood coat his nuzzle and hears the wolf whine, a gurgle that’s accompanied by a low rumble of thunder as his body goes limp. 

The rain starts falling backwards, getting sucked back into the sky from the ground. Pink and red droplets rising from the bite wounds in Raiju’s throat. His body zapping, one last time sending a few volts through Derek in the process. He grits his teeth, swallowing the metallic tang of blood as the pulse of heat and pressure forces him to shift back to human. 

The wolf’s body levitates, floating in a bubble of dark nighttime blue that’s barely visible beyond the clearing sky above them. Clouds giving way to stars colliding and falling through the atmosphere. The moon a cruel thin smile as everything around them returns to normal. The storm gone, the Earth healed, the road the way it always was, the ground dry aside from the blood that Derek is heaving onto it. 

“Dude,” Stiles’s hand is hovering over his back, afraid to touch but unable to stay away.

“I’m fine,” he manages to exhale, the pressure in his lungs beginning to subside.

“No. That is not fine Derek. That is a guy with a punctured lung spitting up blood all over the side of the road.”

“Healing.”

“Healing guy spitting up blood on the side of the road. What the hell was that thing? Where did it go? How did any of that just happen?” now his hand makes contact. It lands on the triskelion, jolting energy through his body before he can tell Stiles not to touch it. 

His breath catches in his throat, he feels Stiles’s heart beating through the hand on his back, the rhythm of his breathing and the energy pulsing through him and into Derek. It aches, stinging with the feel of him, of their connection that he wasn’t ready to tell the kid about. Every inch of him on fire now, rapid healing and Stiles is feeding him too much. He’s giving too much of himself. 

“Stiles!” it’s a hiss when it’s supposed to be a shout, fighting with his body and the pull of gravity and every single wave of pressure that Stiles is inadvertently pushing through him. Derek finally gets his hand off the ground, grasping Stiles’s shirt collar and shoving him away. 

Stiles collapses to the ground next to him. Breathing heavily with exertion. Eyes wide and terrified, cheeks pink, a sheen of sweat on his brow, “what the hell was that?”

The first deep breath that passes through his body since the wolf bit him, mind starting to clear, Derek pats the spot that he was bleeding out of a moment ago, to find it healed completely. He rolls up to his knees, grabbing Stiles by the collar and dragging him close to his face, “don’t you ever heal anyone again until you know what you’re doing,” he grits. 

Stiles’s eyes grow wider, if it’s even possible, his swallow is audible, his fingers close over Derek’s prying them back from his flannel, “maybe a ‘thanks for saving my life Stiles’ is a little more appropriate right now.”

“You didn’t save my life. I had it under control.”

“Yeah. Choking on blood on the side of the road is totally under control Derek,” he sways a little with the effort, falling back on the road, “I’m dizzy.”

“You’re lucky you’re still alive.”

“You’re lucky I’m still alive. Though I guess I’m lucky you’re still alive too. I have a feeling I wouldn’t fare so well if I got bit by some kind of blue wolf. What was that?” he’s rolled to his back, sprawled out on the blacktop, hand covering his eyes, “kind of nauseous too.”

“Raiju,” Derek sighs, settling on his butt next to Stiles. He’d hear it if a vehicle approached. So they’re pretty damn safe to sit here in the middle of the night in the dark, “thunder beast. It’s usually harmless.”

“Then why did you attack it?” there’s a quiver in his belly when he breathes.

He’s not entirely sure the answer to that. Instinct to protect what’s his. His territory. His mate. Derek runs a hand over his face, “I didn’t attack it. It should have run when I snarled at it.”

Stiles’s laugh is immediate, and he laughs so hard there are tears streaming down his cheeks, “this was a pissing match? Like a Discovery channel territory fight? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“It’s not the wolf we have to worry about Stiles,” Derek grits out when his laughter dies down, “it’s whatever summoned the wolf out of the thunderstorm and into it’s physical form.”

“Oh,” his long skinny fingers swipe across his cheeks to wipe the tears of laughter off. 

Derek looks away before the kid can see his smile. Gets to his feet and prods Stiles’s leg with his toe, “get up.”

His hand moves away from his eyes, “you’re naked.”

“Yeah. I’m aware,” shrugging towards his pile of smoldering clothes lying on the road beside the passenger side of the Jeep.

“Just so we both know,” he smirks, gestures a spin with his finger in the air, “turn around.”

“Why?”

“So I can stare at your ass instead of your manhood. Just do it.”

Derek glares, but does turn around. He has no desire to make Stiles uncomfortable, even if the nudity is not exactly something he can control. He listens to the jingle of Stiles’s belt buckle, the sound rubs down his spine and sends tingles through his arms and fingers. Fingers wanting to reach, wanting to touch, wanting to pop the button and unzip the zipper. He clenches his fist at his side, closes his eyes and forces his mind towards the dead Raiju while the sound of the zipper cuts through the sound of the night.

It’s after the jeans are slipped off, the boxers are tugged down and thrown at Derek, pegging him in the small of his back and falling to the ground that he turns back around to see Stiles dragging the jeans back up his legs. He turns his gaze towards the Superman boxers on the ground at his feet, being sure to respect Stiles’s privacy. 

“Put those on.”

“Really? You have ten layers on and all you’re going to give me are your boxers?”

“Never said I was the kind of guy to give anyone the shirt off my back,” he winks. Or something resembling a wink. Something that makes Derek smile even though he tries not to.


	10. Adventure Awaits

Adventure Awaits

It goes a little something like this:

“So Derek can turn into a full-blown wolf? Like with fur and four paws and everything?”

“Wait, Stiles has magic?”

“Hold on, what does the tattoo mean? And what does it do?”

“What’s the deal with the tree? Why does it matter that Stiles was feeding it or whatever he was doing?”

“Can I see the book?”

“Can we all learn the language?”

“Can I shift into a full wolf?”

“Can I see that tattoo? Are you going to have more?”

“Can I touch it?”

And by about the second question, Derek was rubbing the bridge of his nose. Eyes closed, shoulders hunched, nothing but Stiles’s boxers on.

Then it’s Erica who wants to know, “so, you’re going commando then Stilinski?” with an arched brow.

Which is, actually, what makes Derek move. But not so much like just breeze past everyone to go get some clothes, it makes him shift. Shift into a full wolf. And holy Hale, he is so godawful beautiful in that form. Stiles is pretty sure he’ll never get tired of looking at him like that. And also being mildly terrified of him. What? It’s not every day an actual apex predator straight off the Discovery channel and out of the woods is standing right in front of a person inside a building that humans occupy. Or half-humans. Supernatural humans. Maybe someday he should ask the proper labels they like to use.

But for now, he’s just going to enjoy the looks of wonder on the faces of the rest of the pack. And he’s going to brag a little, “I got to see him in action. Against a thunder wolf thingy.”

Derek, the wolf, huffs, turns his back on the room and starts up the stairs to his bedroom. So apparently he’s only comfortable shifting back to full man nudity when it’s just him and Stiles. Or he has more respect for the boundaries of the rest of the pack. Or he just wants to leave Stiles sitting here with all the questions. Great. 

Well, at least his boxers are sitting there. Um, full of Derekness. He should maybe just leave those. But going commando in jeans is just not fun. But putting on another man’s underwear. But Derek put on Stiles’s dirty underwear, maybe not fully dirty, but half-worn. And he didn’t even bat an eyelash over it. Or maybe he should just ask for a clean pair to borrow. But that’s kind of weird, right? Too many buts? Life is full of buts. And butts.

His eyes flit up to the top of the staircase as Derek is shifting back from wolf to man, (hey! Another butt!) while the rest of the pack is just kind of shouting out random questions and theories and knowledge about what other supernatural beings could be on their way to Beacon Hills as they speak, chasing after the magic that’s in the reactivated Nemeton. Or whatever that whole thing is. Stiles is pretty sure he’s going to have to ask Deaton more about the Nemeton. Or the library lady. Or maybe he can find it in a book. If there are any books that are in English about the thing. 

Or, yep, that’s naked man Derek. Disappearing into his bedroom. 

Stiles only looks away from the door that’s left open a crack - is that an invitation? Who is he inviting? Can Stiles go up there and ask for some underwear? - when his boxers hit him square in the face. He catches them as they dribble down his chest, “oh, come on!”

At first glance around the room, no one’s face is giving away any guilt at having been the one who threw them. But at second glance, it was absolutely Allison! Allison! 

She shrugs, a tiny little cherub-like smile rising, even when she does something vicious she still looks so innocent and it’s so not fair.

“We all know you want to sniff his underwear,” Erica winks at Stiles.

“No. I absolutely do not want to sniff anyone’s underwear. Actually.”

“So it’s just him who wants to sniff yours then?”

“What?” but his mouth is totally not doing an impression of a fish right now.

Saved at the last moment by the loft door sliding open and Lydia prancing in. Fashionably late, wondering, “who’s sniffing underwear? And why do I have to be here for that? The text said emergency,” her narrow-eyed glare around the room freezing everyone in their place, as she gives her phone a little shake out in front of her in case they forgot about the text. 

If Stiles could stop doing a dying fish impression, he’d attempt to explain it all. But, as fate has it, it is Allison who recovers first and very eloquently explains all that things that Derek and Stiles had just finished explaining. They maybe left out the part about the secret library for now. Maybe they overlooked that. Or maybe they did that on purpose. It’s their place, right? No one else needs to know about that part. 

Stiles finds his gaze being dragged over to Derek’s bedroom door again. Where Derek is stepping out now. Fully dressed, which is kind of a bummer, his eyes rising to find Stiles immediately. Well, that’s cool, the tattoo glimmers with a little yellow tinge to it now. Comfort? Really? Well, if he’s not going to lie to himself, then he will admit that, yes, seeing Derek alive and well and looking like Derek after watching him get his lung punctured and almost bleed out on the side of the road; sure, he feels comfort now. Yep, he’d feel that way about anyone after that ordeal. Right? 

Totally.

Maybe the sigh he lets out is a little dramatic, dramatic enough that a few sets of eyes land on him and he covers with, “there should really be more furniture in here. I’m tired.”

“Derek’s bed is empty,” Erica smirks.

So Stiles just saved the life of their alpha, and not a single one of them can get up and give him a place to sit? Assholes. All of them. Every last one of them. Even Scott. Who is sitting there like a pleased puppy with Allison crowded onto his lap because of the whole, “not enough furniture Derek!” thing. 

And Derek is suddenly behind him, but he totally doesn’t jump. Or startle in any way. His big, insanely warm hands, landing on Stiles’s shoulders, voice soft even though all the damn wolves can hear him anyway, “go. Sheets are clean.”

Stiles’s mouth opens, to protest maybe. But when his face turns and his eyes meet Derek’s, he realizes that Big Guy is not kidding around. Maybe it has something to do with the whole not healing anyone until he actually knows what he’s doing thing. And yeah, he is still kind of dizzy and nauseous when he thinks about it. So, not thinking about it, is the key. 

“Now,” it’s a low grumble that leaves no room for argument, and the glint in his eyes seals it as an order. 

“I’m not your beta,” Stiles reminds him in a heated whisper that kind of trails off into a yawn. 

The eyebrows are very pointed, very pointedly telling him that he’s tired. And he needs to lay down. Before he’s allowed to leave here and drive home.

He opens his mouth again, to argue. And is interrupted when Derek’s hand lands on his hip and shoves him in the direction of the stairs. 

“So this is happening,” he grumbles to himself on the way up. 

When he pushes Derek’s bedroom door open though, every bit of resistance fades away as his eyes scan over the ridiculously comfortable looking bed. That thing looked comfortable back when it was in the middle of the living area. But now that it’s moved up here, it’s become a collection of pillows and throws. And holy Hale, Stiles just lets himself fall face-first into the middle of it and is not at all disappointed in how much he sinks right in and it smells like so much Derekness, “wow,” is the last thing that comes out of his mouth for a very long time. Other than all the drool of course.

The drool that he wakes in a puddle of. The next morning! He wakes the next morning in a puddle of drool! In Derek’s bed! Shit! 

And Derek is not in it. Oh this is bad. This is so bad. Stiles just slept the entire night in Derek Hale’s bed. While Derek did what? Sleep on the floor? Sleep on the couch? Sleep in the chair beside the bed like this is some kind of hospital scene? 

Oh shit. He’s totally sound asleep sitting straight up in a chair. In a chair in his own bedroom. That is. That is just. It’s bad, okay? 

It’s even worse that the guy wakes up as soon as Stiles adjusts, or maybe he woke up as soon as his breathing changed from sleep to wake. Looking, he’s looking at Stiles. That is smoldering. Yep, that is some smoldering eye contact there. Stiles can’t tell if it’s murderous smolder or lust smolder. But it’s something alright. It also gets shaken off quickly and he gets to his feet, pretending he didn’t sacrifice his bed for the well-being of the delicate human who saved his furry ass last night. 

“Shit, Dad’s going…”

“Scott covered you.”

“Oh,” Stiles rolls to his back, scrubbing into his eyes, watching the ceiling and wondering for just a little, tiny, itty bitty moment what it would feel like to watch the ceiling while Derek is on top of him. Maybe with his hips between his thighs. And his hands on his shoulder blades. And his lips on his neck. Or something else! Something else! Derek can smell that!

Groaning into his hands, pulling himself to seated. He won’t meet Derek’s eyes right now. Nope. Not doing it. There is no doubt in his mind that Derek is smirking right now. And he will not give him the victory. There will be no victory for Derek Hale! Except that he peeks out between his fingers and there is Derek Hale. Smirking. Damn it! 

——————

Apparently magicking makes him flippin’ hungry! He’s had a bowl of oatmeal, a bowl of cereal, a smoothie, and now a banana. Yes, a banana. And no, it doesn’t escape him that Derek keeps looking side-eyed at the banana like he’s jealous of it. Ha! So maybe the guy just hasn’t gotten any in a while and it has nothing to do with Stiles, just phallic shaped items going between lips. Yep, that’s all it is. It has nothing to do with Stiles.

Except that he hasn’t even glanced at the banana that Erica is practically deep-throating. 

“Alright, so, the Nemeton.”

“Yes. That. Derek. The Nemeton,” Stiles gulps down the last bite of banana, “and the bikes. The real mystery is who’s bikes are those?”

“That’s not a mystery,” he pushes out from the table, letting his chair scrape to get the attention of all the wolves in the entire country probably because that even hurt Stiles’s human ears, “Scott, Isaac, go talk to Deaton. See what you can pry out of him about the Nemeton. Allison,” he’s been really good at schooling his glares lately when he’s talking to an Argent, “your dad. Take Lydia with you. See what he can tell you,” he grumbles, “if anything,” under his breath. Because he’s probably never going to fully accept an Argent into his pack, and really, no one can blame him. But, ‘work with what you have’ might as well be the Hale pack motto now. 

Allison’s expression clearly conveys that she heard that, but Lydia links her arm through hers and leads her out the door, talking about how she has to make a stop at the corner store for more lip gloss on the way.

“What about us, boss?” Erica is sitting on the counter, having fully demolished that banana is one gulp probably.

Derek rubs the bridge of his nose, something common when dealing with Erica. And Stiles. Her more so than him though. So Stiles is pretty sure he’s not the biggest headache in the pack. Maybe.

“Go,” his fingers move to his eyes to grind into them for a moment, “do,” removing them to blink a few times, “something.”

Erica opens her mouth to give him shit no doubt, but Boyd takes her arm, “we’ll check the Preserve for any new scents.”

Derek nods, well thank all things holy that he bit a single responsible individual. 

“And us?” Stiles drums his fingers on the table while he waits, drumming right through Derek’s glare.

“Library.”

———————

“Hello?” Stiles calls into the shimmering library. Saraswati is not here. And that is weird.

Derek is standing really close to him, his body heat reaching out to brush against his arm. He’s tempted again, to link their fingers together, wondering how Derek would react. If he was ever going to do it, here would be the place. There’s no one else in here. And if Derek gets mad at him, he can just make up some lie about wanting to see if magic can change when there’s a link to a supernatural being involved. Like the healing thing last night. 

Derek’s hand darts suddenly, lands on Stiles’s thigh, and he takes a half step in front of him to put himself between Stiles and the thing that is moving towards them. The thing that is very human shaped and has a smile on her face. She looks familiar in a weird I’ve-passed-you-in-a-store kind of way. 

“Derek Hale,” her smile unfaltering, then she says something in the secret werewolf language. 

Derek relaxes a tiny bit, but Stiles gets the impression that it’s only for show, it’s to prove to this woman that he’s not afraid of her. 

Her hand extends for a shake, Derek takes it. Stiffening on the contact, a deep breath and gritted teeth. Is she hurting him? He doesn’t let go of her, his touch is gone from Stiles’s thigh. He says something to her and she releases, a zap of black sparkles floats across the space between their hands. Hers rises, a pleased and somewhat vicious smile on her face when her blue eyes land on Stiles. 

“I won’t shake your hand young mage, the magic between us would have disastrous results were it to mix at this stage of your learning. But I’m pleased to meet you Stiles. I’m Louise. Call me Lou.”

“Where’s the old lady?”

“On to her next assignment,” it sounds innocent, and she looks innocent, but something is off here. 

“Is she going to be back any time soon?”

“Depends,” Louise shrugs, “I s’pose we’ll find out together. Go along now. Adventure awaits,” she smirks as she sweeps her hand to the rows of books. 

Stiles opens his mouth, but Derek’s hand clamps down on his wrist and he nods curtly at the woman. Taking Stiles with him down into the depths of the magical library. Where fairies and dinosaurs roam the aisles. Where King Arthur holds court on the moon. Where Eleanor Roosevelt is the president of Heaven. Where vines sprout out of the corners of the shelves, quickly climb the sides and giant flowers open to lean against Derek as he walks past them like they don’t exist. Maybe they don’t. Stiles has no idea what exists up here and what doesn’t. Maybe he should ask Derek some day what he sees when they’re here. Every time it’s something different, and lately it’s been so much more. Ever since he came up here with Derek for the first time and things started growing out of the books, “hey, I wonder,” his finger traces the spine of one of the books that has never opened for him before, he pulls it off the shelf and slides the pads of his index and middle fingers along the cover. Without pulling it open, it suddenly flips to the middle page. Stiles does not squeak and drop it in surprise though. He totally doesn’t!

Derek is just catching it before it hits the ground because, well, okay, fine, he dropped it. Or it jumped! It jumped out of his hand. That is what happened. 

He scowls at Stiles before his gaze drops to the open book in his hand. Stiles takes the step to lean over his shoulder and look at it too. A hand drawn tree, winding across the entire page with a fat trunk and wide leaves, with branches that are shooting off the page and starting to spread into the space in front of them, careening through the books but piercing none of them. Growing with a windy moan along the shelves, down the aisle.

“You’re seeing this, right?”

“Yep,” Derek sighs, resigned to just watch. He cocks his head to the side, listening intently as the tree creaks and moans. 

“Is it talking? Please tell me it’s talking to you.”

And if looks could kill.

“So, not talking then. Okay,” Stiles rocks back on his heels, runs a hand over the back of his head. 

Derek suddenly slams the book shut, face ashen as the tree disappears and he presses the book back into the place Stiles pulled it out of. He’s making his way down the aisle and around to the next one before Stiles can even get a word out of his mouth. By the time Stiles rounds the corner, he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, another book open in his lap. One that is actually just a book. Not growing anything. Nothing dancing off the pages. Nothing is on fire. And nothing is happening at all in this aisle. It’s kind of disappointing actually. Very. Very disappointing. 

“Whatcha readin’?” Stiles wonders when he plops down next to Derek.

His head only rises long enough to scowl and shrug, pointing at a book that he apparently thinks Stiles should be reading. When Stiles opens his mouth to snark at the guy, he just tugs it off the self and lets it land right on Stiles’s lap. Yep, and that’s a nut, “damn it Derek!”

He gets to his feet, grabbing the book and shooting daggers at the broodywolf, then thinks maybe he should start schooling his looks since he might actually physically shoot daggers at someone on accident someday. Like the whole ‘your face will stay that way’ thing, only not at all. More like you’re a mage, surprise! So you can kill people with dirty looks! Yay! That would kind of suck actually. Though he could fix the problem that is named Peter Hale pretty quickly. And accidentally. Wink. Wink.

When Stiles finds a desk, inserts himself into the chair, and throws the book open, that woman from a minute ago, Lou, she appears out of thin air next to him. He totally doesn’t startle. But if he did startle, it would have made a weird wave of energy bubble up from his flailing hands and make her duck from whatever projectile just ejected from his fingertips. Okay, so finger-gunning has a brand new meaning right now. 

“Uh, sorry,” he shoves his hands in his pockets. Which is something that’s kind of hard to do when sitting down. But he does it. For the safety and protection of everyone in this magical realm, “if I die in a magical library do I die in real life?”

She shrugs, “never happened before. Wanna find out?” a glinting blade appears in her hand and a twisted smile rises.

“Um, no. Not, not really. Nope,” his hands fling out of his pockets, up between them like a shield and what do you know? An actual shield appears too. And so does the broodywolf. All snarls and growls and menacing glares, his hand clamping down on Lou’s wrist to drag the blade away from the vicinity of Stiles.

Well, that tattoo is shimmering wildly right now. Just announcing it’s presence there. Fun stuff.

“Interesting,” she’s rather nonplussed by having big claws wrapped around her wrist. The blade disappears and she puts her other hand up too, “just a test Derek. No need to bring that alpha out,” she winks. And how does it look cool and beguiling when she does it?

Stiles is going to need to practice. Apparently. And he might be practicing right now. That’s stupid timing. Judging by the two sets of judging brows he gets for his effort. Two sets! What the hell?! This woman doesn’t even know him and she’s judging him already!

“Enough with all the brow judgery. Put those away,” he drops his hands to drop the shield. He really needs to figure out how to reel this all in. 

“Did you find it Hale?” her focus is solely on him again, like the whole little side-note never happened.

“I did,” he growls and she smirks. 

“Do you understand now?”

“Is it real?”

“Indeed my dear. Indeed,” she lifts her hand, pats his arm. The contact jolts him and she pulls away when his eyelids close, “it’s always real,” she whispers and then she’s gone. 

“Uh Derek?”

His eyes are still closed, liquid gathering at the crease. Like tears. Oh shit. 

He turns away quickly from Stiles, his hand rises to cover his face and he stalks down the book aisle before Stiles can even get to his feet, “wait? Are we done here? What did you find out? What is happening?” grabbing for his book and taking off after Derek towards the door, into the stairwell as it starts to swirl and fade. Glowing, brightening around them when Derek stops. He’s blinking and every time he does it, a little spark of black and dark blue flits off his face like he’s shedding sadness through sparkles. 

“There’s going to be a unicorn isn’t there?”

“What?”

“All the sparkles, just, assumed there’d be a unicorn.”

Now his hand rises and flicks away a whole ball of sparkles and then they’re just gone, “unicorns are not what they’re made out to be.”

“You’ve seen a unicorn?!” but he totally doesn’t squeal. Because that would be something a small child would do. Probably a girl. A small girl child. Not a nearly grown guy. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a small girl child, indeed they are probably the epitome of happiness and that’s awesome. Unless, of course, they’re fucked up by having a fucked up family or circumstance or something, then even the epitome of happy isn’t happy anymore. Stiles wonders if he could conjure a unicorn.

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Unicorns are not actually the sparkly rainbowy things…”

“Rainbowy?”

And Stiles is on the receiving end of the Hale Death Glare once again. He puts his hands up between them, then flails a ‘continue’ sign. And promptly interrupts, “I always thought that whole thing about laying their heads in the lap of a virgin was fucking weird and it was just some kind of lingo for being rapey uncles.”

“Rapey uncles?”

“How is that different than rainbowy? Derek Hale is walking away,” and has apparently reached his word limit for the day. Stiles waves a hand over his shoulder at the disappearing library when he careens around the corner of the stairwell and out the door. Following right behind Derek and walking directly into his back when he comes to a halt by the Jeep. The Jeep that has a symbol etched into it, “no! Not my baby!” 

Derek’s low growl sounds a lot more legitimate of a response when a man gets his car keyed. 

“Or that,” Stiles shrugs, creeping closer to the hood of the Jeep, his mom’s Jeep, cringing when he thinks about what the hell kind of pissed off creature had to have done this. And what the hell it means.

“Alpha pack,” is Derek’s low rumbling response before he tilts his head back and howls. 

Yep. Right here in the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Beacon Hills. Howling. 

“Smooth,” Stiles mutters, rounding the Jeep to get in the driver’s side, “it’s quieter and easier to just group text Derek.”

“A text can be ignored Stiles.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, now the alpha pack heard you too. Or was that for them?”

“Both mine and theirs. Drive.”

“Still not a beta,” Stiles reminds him, but turns the ignition anyway.


	11. He'd Choose It

He’d Choose It 

“Hey, look at that, we can make back to back appointments at the body shop for our vehicles,” long skinny fingers flick towards the symbol on Derek’s hood. Then he mimes a telephone, brings it to his ear, “I need to make an appointment for some body work. Oh just a satanic cult or something. A police report? Insurance claim? Nah, not necessary. Oh I’m so loaded I don’t need to use my insurance for what it’s there for that I pay an arm and a leg to keep on my shitty old vehicle that isn’t even worth what I pay in insurance on a bi-yearly basis for just in case! When just in case happens and I don’t use it because what the hell would I even…”

“Stiles.”

“Yes Derek?” he hangs up his finger phone, apparently it’s a flip phone, and tucks it in his pocket.

“Shut up.”

“Yep. Doing that,” he rocks back on his heels.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure thing. You know how to sand blast it or will it just buff out?”

There is way too much sour lemon in the air for Derek to handle it without reaching out. It’s not their dynamic to reach out tenderly, so he grabs Stiles by the collar. Drags him closer and tells him with a flash of his eyes, “I’ll take care of it,” very slowly. Releasing him when he nods, and wondering, “it was your mom’s Jeep wasn’t it?”

Stiles rubs the cuff of his flannel over the hood, right next to the symbol, “yeah,” it’s more mumbled towards his feet than towards Derek.

“I know the owner of the garage on Lincoln.”

His eyes dart up to meet Derek’s, the late evening glow of the dimming sun lighting an ember in the depth of them that Derek wishes Stiles could see when he looks at himself in the mirror, “the abandoned one?”

“Not so abandoned. And yes, that’s the one.”

“I’m just going to let that one go. And tru,” he clears his throat, “tr,” stops and starts again, “trus, I’ll get there,” there’s a playful smile tugging the corners of his mouth, “trust you,” becoming a full grin that Derek has to look away quickly or risk smiling back. His bony elbow connects with Derek’s arm and he’s about to open his mouth again when Scott’s bike interrupts his train of thought. 

The few times that Derek is happy to see Scott: when it stops whatever was about to come out of Stiles’s mouth next.

“Alpha pack Scotty!” he’s already storming over to meet him, before he even pulls his helmet off. 

Derek walks towards the building with the sound of the rest of the pack filtering in. 

———————

“Don’t for one second,” he warns Peter later. After the pack has made their way back home, and it’s just Derek and the looming shadowy presence of his uncle, “think that I wouldn’t trade you for them. A single one of them. If you get caught,” he narrows his eyes at Peter as he steps out of the corner where he usually lurks during their pack meetings, only coming out when he has some brilliant form of bullshit to bestow upon them all.

“Dear nephew, I would never think that,” he sits on the couch with an air of royalty, propping both arms on the back of it while he watches Derek pull himself up on the bar above him. Doing ten pull-ups while Peter watches, then sighs, “I don’t believe you’d ever choose me over anyone. Not after killing your sister. Maybe someday I’ll apologize.”

“Doubt it,” he shifts to one-armed pull-ups.

“Me too. I doubt it too. I only hope you’ll never have to go through what I went through. Trapped in my own head.”

“I wouldn’t wish being inside your head on even Kate Argent.”

“Touché,” he tips his head towards Derek in acknowledgment, then directs his attention towards his hangnail, bored by the conversation, “will you be telling your young mate about Paige?”

“Mate?” Derek balks, switching arms and forcing himself to focus. Not let Peter get under his skin. Not let Peter get in his head.

“Stilinski. Now will your future children carry his name or yours? It wouldn’t be the first time a homosexual couple was in the Hale pack. It would, however, be the first time a Hale alpha brought a same-sex partner to the head of it.”

Derek doesn’t respond. Knowing full well if he engages in conversation with Peter, then he’ll get into his head. So the best route with him is to play dumb. It always has been.

He grows bored of watching Derek soon enough, when he’s dropped down to the floor for push-ups, “as always,” he smirks, “good talk nephew.”

“Agreed.”

He saunters across the room, pulling the door open as Isaac is returning and entering. They stop long enough to eyeball each other briefly, “leave him alone,” Derek warns Peter. 

It takes Isaac until well after dark to wonder, from outside Derek’s bedroom door, “what did he mean by mate?”

Derek doesn’t answer for long enough that Isaac tells him softly, “I don’t think it would hold him back, you know? Helping you run this pack. I think he’d choose it.”

His footsteps start backing up, going towards his own room, Derek whispers, “good night,” just before his door closes.

———————

His bed smells like Stiles. And his dreams are rank with smoke. Laden with screams. And ripping his heart out with howls.


	12. Keep Your Anchor Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream sequence that involves some blood and mild (canon) gore.

Keep Your Anchor Close

It’s dark out. Too dark to see, but Stiles knows where he’s headed. And he knows what he’s doing. 

He stops when he reaches the base of the tree. Slits his wrists. Not deep. Only enough to bleed. And watches the blood drip. Drop. Drip towards the roots of the tree. He watches as it shivers and shakes, as it falls through the air. Turning into sparkling liquid metal, slipping into the dirt. 

His eyes close. When they open it’s broad daylight. He steps now, aware of his body but not in control of it. His fingers slip over the handlebars of the bike. The one that used to be blue. His eyes catch on the bottle in the water bottle holder. That’s never been there before. 

He squats next to it, reaches for the glass bottle with a tiny ship inside it. In the neck of the bottle is an old piece of yellowing paper. Pulling it out with shaking fingers. The blood is already gone, the wounds already healed. 

His heart throws itself at his chest uncomfortably. Recognizing the handwriting immediately, “Mom,” he hears himself whisper. It echoes. It shakes the tree, leaves swaying and dancing overhead. A few yellow and orange ones dance down like colored rain to land at his feet.

‘Meet me at home’ is what the note says. 

His heart thunders into his throat. Darting to his feet, he takes off running. As fast as he can. 

But this isn’t real. This is just a dream. And it’s one of those dreams where he’s running on a treadmill only not. He’s staying in one place, his legs won’t carry him out of here but they won’t stop running. And the scenery is staying the same underfoot, while changing all around him. Showing him images that make his stomach churn and his teeth hurt back in his jaw. Images of Derek. Impaled on a pipe on the floor of his loft. A woman who really needs a pedicure looming over him. Then there’s a teacher, but not really her. She makes Derek fall in love with her. Stiles hears himself whisper, “no,” as he watches them kiss. 

He trips over his feet, sprawls on the ground of the forest that is no longer moving past him, but swirling around him. Derek now falling, he’s falling and he’s bleeding. His body is limp even before it hits the ground. Falling along with some big guy, a guy so big he makes Derek look small. They land on some old stairs. He’s dead.

Stiles’s heart catches in his throat, halting at a swallow, but it won’t move. He’s choking on panic, holding onto his chest as he watches Derek being tortured by Kate Argent. Being put in a tomb. Falling backwards in time. Becoming a boy again. A boy who is holding a girl his age in the roots beneath him now. She’s dying. A boy who is watching his mother walking towards him, promising, ‘blue but just as beautiful’. A boy who is returning to his childhood home to find condos being built.

The bottom of his world drops out when Derek is with a woman. They’re kissing in his bed. She’s leather and guns and scars. And she’s with him when he dies. He dies in a desert. 

Stiles hears himself breathe, heavy and panicked. Rushing in his ears and unbearable on his chest. Everything is getting blurry. Sparks entering his peripheral and taking over the center of his vision, “this isn’t real,” he reminds himself, gasping and whispered, broken and sobbing. 

When the forest stops spinning it clears, the Hale house is standing in front of him. There are children playing in the yard. A woman he recognizes as Talia Hale. She’s sitting on the front steps watching her children as they shift back and forth from human to wolf. She has a baby in her arms. And she’s smiling, “I knew you’d come,” she tells Stiles, “I knew you’d protect him,” as her face starts to fall. Fire starts bursting out of the windows and suddenly everyone is gone. They’re inside. They’re trapped inside. Glass is breaking. Floorboards are cracking and falling. 

Stiles covers his ears. His mouth opens to let out a scream and he can’t make any noise. He’s suffocating. Ash and smoke billowing out of the house and into his mouth. 

“Make it stop!” his brain is screaming at him. He falls to his knees, helpless to do anything but watch. 

Watching until there’s nothing left but the shell of the house that Derek was living in when he first moved back. And there are hands on his shoulders, hands he knows, hands he’s always known, “come on son, let’s get you out of here.”

“Dad!” jerking his head to look over his shoulder. But it’s not the dad he saw last. It’s Dad from back then. A deputy with rosy drinker’s cheeks and bloodshot eyes.

“You’re not supposed to be in the woods alone,” he tells him, pulling him to his feet.

“I know, I…”

“You’re supposed to be afraid of the big bad wolf,” Peter is suddenly standing in the path. Between Stiles and the tree.

“Dad?”

“Can’t help you now,” Peter’s face twists, becomes the alpha form he had. The ugly snarling beast he was when they lit him on fire and Derek slit his throat. He lowers himself to all fours, starts charging towards Stiles and a sudden flash of blue and silver encompasses him, stopping Peter in his tracks. Sending him vaulting backwards and crashing into the woods.

“Mischief,” she’s right behind him, her hand landing on his shoulder.

“Mom,” Stiles throws his arms around her, expecting to be taller than her, but he’s not. He’s a boy again.

She lifts him off the ground and he willingly wraps his legs around her hips, snuggling into her neck, arms gripping tight to her neck.

“Not so tight sweetheart,” she tells him, “I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to hold on so tight.”

“Is that true?”

“For now,” she smiles at him when he leans away from her neck, “for now,” her hands warm and safe on his back, “I missed you so much.”

“I heard you though.”

“I know you did. I should have told him. Your dad. I should have told him about the book, about the magic. But I wanted to master it before I told anyone,” she sets him on the ground, kneels down in front of him, slides a hand through his hair, “I got carried away. It was too much. You need to be stronger than I was. And you need to know when to quit. You need to know when to stop before you destroy yourself,” she taps his temple, then her own, “don’t do what I did.”

“How? How do I control it?”

“Keep your anchor close. And tell your father. Please,” she cups his chin, her eyes twinkling as she appraises him, “you’re going to grow up someday. And it’ll be hard. But I’ll never leave you.”

“I know,” he blinks, a tear loosing itself from his eye, “I already know that part Mom.”

Her smile is soft, her finger softer as she swipes the tear away, leaning forward to kiss his forehead, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” his hand darts out to grab hers, but it’s gone already, “Mom!” everything in front of him starts to swirl again, “don’t go!” 

Everything starts darkening, a wolf howls in the distance, the doorknob turns, it echoes in his head, and someone is holding him. Wrapping arms around him, tucking him into himself to keep the panic in control. A hold, not a hug. It’s a hold right now. To keep him from taking flight, “Dad,” he hears himself gasp. Forcing himself to the surface of sleep, blinking until wake takes over, his hands gripped tight to Dad’s forearms, “she was here,” he hears himself gasp, “Mom. She was here. Not here here, at the tree.”

“It’s okay, just breathe,” his dad is still repeating, rocking now, in a rhythmic steadying sway, “I’ve got you, just breathe Kiddo.”

———————

When he gets to the Nemeton, Derek is already there. Full wolf. Lying down, looking around, fully expecting Stiles to show up and not a care in the world about anything else.

“So, uh, you gonna shift back Big Guy?” Stiles sits down next to him, “maybe I’ll give you one of my shirts this time,” he teases.

To which Derek doesn’t even acknowledge, just puts his chin on his paws and closes his eyes.

“Fine. Be that way. I can out-silence you anytime,” which is a total lie. But Stiles is never one for turning down a challenge. He flips his mom’s book open, thinks about what Dream Mom told him. And admits, “I had a weird dream last night. It was mostly about you,” it’s way easier to talk to Derek when his eyebrows can’t judge Stiles, and when he’s covered in fur. And can’t talk back, “I just kept seeing these different versions of you dead or dying. And then the fire,” he tells him quietly, reaches out to slide a finger over his front paw. Which is super forward, but Derek doesn’t jolt away, or even open his eyes. Maybe he’s asleep. Maybe he had weird terrifying dreams all night too, “my mom was there. At the end of it. And she told me I needed to tell my dad. About all this stuff,” his free hand flails around to encompass the tree, the wolf, the tattoo, and the book. The wolf who still has his eyes closed, “she also said I need to keep my anchor close. But I don’t even have an anchor,” at that the wolf’s eyes lazily open. The whole world of color filtering though them and pulling Stiles’s entire soul forward, “oh, okay. So that’s an anchor. Got it,” he dares to slide a second finger over his soft paw.

He doesn’t pull the paw away, instead lowers his head again, resting his chin on top of Stiles’s fingers. It’s a simple gesture, or something that might be simple for most, um, dogs. But Derek is not a dog. And Derek is not simple. Nothing about him is simple. And nothing about him is this trusting. But he’s trusting Stiles. Shit, he has been all along, hasn’t he?

Something inside Stiles (his heart probably) melts. And his entire body follows it.

Oh Hale. Stiles is fucked. Five ways from next Tuesday. He is so fucked. Not only is he going to have to tell his dad about the magic, and the werewolves, and the tree. He’s also going to have to tell him he’s in love with Derek Hale.


	13. Promises And Possibilities

Promises And Possibilities

Derek doesn’t bother shifting back. Not until they’ve walked through the Preserve, Stiles’s fingers keep brushing along the nape of his neck as they walk. Like he just wants to keep reminding himself that Derek is there beside him while he talks. Eventually he falls quiet. Quiet, but not silent. The natural fidgeting and occasional whistles don’t stop and Derek knows now, after he spent a night sleeping beside his bed while Stiles slept in it, that he doesn’t even fall silent or still in sleep. It’s somehow comforting, as much as Derek will glare and roll his eyes at him, it’s the constant motion and noise that reminds Derek he’s not alone.

Stiles doesn’t leave when Derek shifts, sitting down on the porch steps and fiddling with the book balanced in his lap as Derek dresses. Stiles just spent the main part of the afternoon spilling his guts to Derek, the least he could do is tell him something, anything, about what he knows, what he suspects, and how it’s going to change Stiles’s life.

He takes a seat next to him, close enough to feel his body heat alongside his thigh, but not close enough to touch. It’s easy to allow it, to allow feeling when he’s wearing a fur coat, but now, with nothing more than jeans between them, it would mean something different.

“I saw the same things,” Derek clears his throat, “some of the same things, in my dreams last night,” feeling Stiles’s wide, wonder-filled eyes on the side of his face. Not returning the eye contact, instead watching the fidgeting of his hands on the book, “there are prophecies. Old bullshit lore. And outdated beliefs in packs about,” his words trail off, this all sounds too stupid when it’s actually spoken aloud in his own voice. He used to love hearing it from Laura, while she would talk about souls bound from not just life and experience, but from before that, and beyond that. Derek was too young to fully understand it, but he recognized in her face and her voice that she wanted that. She wanted to be the alpha and have a pack, she’d find a strong mate, she was destined for it. And she would be great. 

Derek never understood love. He knew his parents loved each other, he knew the bonds of family and pack. Of course he knew those things. He was born into them. And he lost them. But he never understood love from someone who chose him, not until Paige.

His voice shakes when it comes out again, “I thought I was in love back in high school. Before Kate. Before the fire. A girl named Paige. She was smart, and funny,” he presses his eyes closed for a moment to gather himself. Remembering her wry sense of humor, her pale, delicate skin and her sparkling eyes. The way she looked at him, like she’d be his forever, even when her words were daring him to chase her, to put aside everything he was pretending to be, and just be hers, “you don’t know who you are in high school,” now his eyes drag over and meet Stiles’s. He is unmoving. Completely still. And Derek wonders for a moment if this is another dream. So he utters, “I’m still trying to figure out who I am.”

A smile, gentle, without the slightest hint of malice or sarcasm, tugs at the corners of his full lips, “good thing I know who you are then.”

Derek doesn’t respond verbally, feeling his eyebrows rise up in question.

“You’re Derek Hale. All brood and muscle and dark dramatic corners on the outside. But on the inside, you’re kind of a gooey marshmallow who wants nothing more than a purpose. And a pack,” he sighs, his eyes dart to Derek’s lips for moment, back up to his eyes, and hold steady, “and maybe someone to help you out from time to time. And make you laugh,” his elbow nudges into Derek’s side. Sharp and sure, “you know, just to break up the gloom and doom every once in awhile,” his eyes are bright, dancing with promises and possibilities that neither of them are ready to make good on just yet.

Derek breaks the eye contact first, gets to his feet and tells Stiles, “get a good night of sleep for once. If you’re going to master this, we start tomorrow. And we figure out how to tell your dad by next weekend.”

His mouth falls open, hangs there for a moment until Derek glares at him, “yep. That. That we can do. And in the meantime, you can give me a ride home because it’s getting dark out and I don’t want to walk home with a beacon pointing at my dick, when there’s a pack of alphas howling through the Preserve. And your guy at the garage still has my Jeep.”

——————

Derek thought that opening the gate would mean a flood. That he’d be fielding questions about lore, and prophecies for the rest of the night. But Stiles seems to be letting a few things sink in, putting the pieces together in his mind from his dreams and what he remembers of his mom. 

“Okay,” he turns towards Derek in the passenger side of the Camaro when he pulls in the driveway, “I have one question.”

“One.”

“Yes. One. So when the old lady whispered whatever it was that I repeated and boom! Now I have a sparkling tattoo! Was that something that would have shown up eventually anyway, like a fate kind of thing but with magic, or was that just a lesson to never repeat words that I don’t know the meaning of?”

“You said one question, but there were about three in there.”

“Yes, but it was a run-on question. Not questions.”

Derek sighs, rubs his knuckle under his chin for a moment, “she fed you the words that you needed to reveal the magic that’s already inside you.”

“And that magic just happens to be a tattoo that responds hyperactively to you?”

“No. It responds to you.”

“And I respond to you,” he says it quickly, then flushes sightly, averts his gaze.

Derek gives him a moment to gather his courage. Lets his eyes trail over his jawline, watching him grind his teeth for a moment, then swallow. Gaze shifting down the column of his throat. He reaches out, takes hold of his chin gently to aim his focus, “I don’t want this to be something you feel forced to do.”

“I,” his mouth opens, then snaps shut again, his eyes drifting back and forth between Derek’s for a long moment. A deep breath, his long fingers sliding up Derek’s forearm, wrapping around his wrist and holding, “I want to do this Derek. Besides,” he shrugs, a smile quirking his lips, “I’m stubborn. It is impossible to force me to do something that I don’t want to do. Don’t believe me? Ask my dad,” he tilts his head towards the front door of the house.

Where the sheriff is standing with his arms crossed over his chest. 

Derek drops his grip immediately on Stiles. Stiles smirks, his fingers unwinding from Derek’s wrist, “guess you should get out and say hi,” as he shoves the car door open and hops out, calling, “hiya Pops.”

———————

Derek thought that Stiles took after his mother in most ways. And Derek was mostly right. 

He watches as Stiles slides his shirts up, after telling his father the whole story. Sheriff schooling his expression into his professional self, treating his son as he would treat anyone giving a testimonial in an interview room. Except this is their kitchen. 

He’s kept his cool. Hasn’t blurted out inappropriate questions or interrupted the story. His eyes glancing across Derek every so often, corroborating his son’s words with a nod or a quiet vocalization.

It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. And Stiles didn’t exactly follow through with their plan to actually plan how to tell him. He just walked in after telling Derek to get out and say hi, sat down, shoved a plate full of food down in one gulp, and then said, “I’ve got something to show you, Dad,” and now here they are.

With the whole story laid out on the table between the three of them. The magic library, the books, and the wolves. Sheriff’s face doesn’t change, even once Stiles stops talking, his hands on the table begin fidgeting and his tattoo glowing in a nervous strobe of multi-colored hues. 

Bottom lip tucked between his teeth, gnawing away at it, while his eyes flit all over his dad’s face, desperate for a response. His foot is tapping, and every time his leg moves with it, his knee brushes against Derek’s under the table. Derek has to fight with his hand not to reach out and grab, not to hold his leg steady, not to attempt forcing some calm on him. 

Sheriff finally takes a deep breath, scrubs at his forehead, massages his temples, then falls back against his chair in defeat, one hand landing overtop of Stiles’s where it’s fidgeting on the table.

“Don’t check me into Eichen house. Please.”

A sad smile tugs at his face and Derek nearly opens his mouth to interrupt, wants to shift right here in front of him, prove that the wolf part is real, and the magic part is real, that the tattoo isn’t some kind of strange new fad with teens or some kind of chemical; but John responds very certainly, “I believe you, Kiddo.”

“Guess I’ll go pack my bags, and get ready for electroshock, wait, what?! You do?! That easily? I don’t have to get Derek to shift in front of you? Or even open the book and see what kind of magic I can throw around the room? You actually, you…” his eyes are wide, the widest Derek has ever seen them, “you believe me?”

“Of course I do. I know your tells, son. And this,” his free hand rises, scrapes along the back of his head. There it is, one of the few responses they have in common as father and son, “this explains a lot.”

“You mean Mom?”

“I mean Mom. And I mean all the sneaking around lately. Son?” he taps his finger down on the top of Stiles’s knuckles and waits until Stiles takes a deep breath, holding full eye contact, “don’t ever lie to me again.”

“Yes sir,” his cheeks flush pink, and he fights with whatever words he wants to say next, deciding instead to remain silent and let his dad lead from here.

The sheriff’s eyes land next on Derek, “you know what you’re doing?”

“Not really. Not with the magic part of it anyway.”

“You’ll find someone then? Before you both end up hurt or dead.”

“I’ll try.”

“Trying isn’t enough.”

“I will,” he amends.

“That’s better,” he shoves his chair out from the table and Derek follows suit, “now, I believe you have a minor in your care that needs a stable home.”

“I do, yes.”

“And it’s a school night,” his hand lands on Derek’s shoulder when he takes the steps around the table, heading for the door. He walks beside him until they’re on the porch, with the door securely shut behind them and Stiles still in the kitchen, “I know,” both hands now on his shoulders, his eye contact rife with words he doesn’t need to speak about keeping his son safe, making sure he stays out of trouble, makes it to school every day, and he’s not the next eviscerated body in the woods, “I knew,” he corrects himself, “your family. I knew your dad for a long time. I don’t know if you remember or not, but I knew you as a boy. I was there, that night, the fire. And I know, even without the supernatural things that I’m trying to wrap my head around, that you’ve put a lot of pressure on yourself to live up to your family name, and maybe to avenge their deaths. But son, you need to be careful. You don’t always get to choose what road you walk down, but you do get to choose which side of the road you want to stay on,” his hands both squeeze tightly, then release, leaving a cold spot in their absence, “have a good night, son.”

Derek can’t respond past the lump in his throat, watching Stiles’s dad disappear into the house once more. Backing away slowly, feeling the ties stronger now, between him and Stiles, watching through the window as his head lifts, focus catching on Derek’s shadow in the darkness, then dropping again in a nod. 

A deep breath does nothing to calm the fluttering in his chest. 

———————

Derek leaves the loft that night. After listening for both Isaac’s and Peter’s breathing patterns, knowing they’re both asleep. He leaves the loft and shifts, runs to the old house and waits. Under the crescent moon, he listens, scents the air and knows they’re coming.


	14. A Mural

A Mural

Stiles doesn’t remember his dreams when he wakes up, but he knows they were heavy on the sex and light on the plot. And now he has another tattoo. How cute? So cute. It’s like it’s sprouting out of the other one, a vine of symbols crawling up the center of his abdomen. Gill garnish? Rib trim? It’s too much to be either, this is going to be full-on mural. 

Standing in front of the mirror as he brushes his teeth, he presses down on the center of it, and it sends a shock through his entire damn system. Stealing his breath, he nearly chokes on his toothpaste. Gripping the sink to remain on his feet, “Dad?” his voice sounds weak, but it’s enough.

Dad is there in the open doorway, looking like he’s already chugged one cup of coffee and barely slept. When his eyes fall on Stiles, he stops in his tracks, “wasn’t it only,” gesturing over his own lower abdominals.

“Yeah,” another shot of pain surges through him and he coughs out the last of his toothpaste. Splashing water on his face, cold water, because cold stops pain, right? It does. It doesn’t, “oh,” his knees buckle, “my god,” he lands on his butt on the tiles, hands above his head, still gripping the sink for dear life.

Dad is kneeling immediately, tentatively reaching out, “I don’t want to touch you where it hurts.”

Stiles makes the move for them both, turning his body to lunge into his dad’s embrace. Letting the pain course and burn across his chest, hands finding Dad’s shirt and gripping tight, “just breathe,” Dad is urging, “just breathe through it.”

“It didn’t hurt last time,” sparks of panic are rising and he knows he still has time to fight it off, “I don’t know why it hurts this time,” he mashes his face against Dad’s heart, a film of sweat rising on his skin. It’s fire. And it’s spreading. 

That’s not the worst part though. It’s not. It’s not even close. He hears a howl. Low and distant at first. One that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up and a shot of pain course through his emerging tattoo. He’s frozen in time, images of his nightmares flashing in his mind when he presses his eyes closed against the agony. Another howl sounds, he knows it’s Derek. He’d know that howl anywhere. It deepens, lengthens, turns into a sharp whine as it dies down and along with it, the pain in Stiles’s body. He’s breathing heavy when it recedes, feeling like he’s just run a marathon. Crumpled against his dad’s embrace, hearing him still calmly and softly reminding him to breathe. Counting the seconds between, and stroking up and down Stiles’s back. 

“I’m fine,” it’s raspy, like he hasn’t spoken in a decade, “I’m fine,” pulling back, assessing the damage, “oh shit,” it’s a mural alright. It sure is, “oh shit,” his mouth drops open and hangs that way even as he gets to his feet unsteadily, getting his eyeful in the mirror image of himself. It’s his tree, the Nemeton, but it’s made up of symbols, the symbols of the language in Mom’s book. It’s sprouted out of his welcome mat and is covering his entire torso and chest, branches spread to his shoulders, stopping at his arms. He turns to check out what he can see of his back in the mirror, the branches stop at his sides. His back is still clear. 

“I guess V-necks are out of the question,” he sighs, looks over at Dad, who’s eyebrows are through the roof, “not that they were ever a question of mine anyway, but yeah,” scratching at the back of his head. 

Dad is left speechless, sitting on the floor, staring blankly.

“I, um, I guess…”

“You’re not going to school today,” Dad interrupts, “hell, you might not ever go to school again.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Stiles responds.

Dad only rolls his eyes, then announces, “I’m not going to work today either.”

“No, Dad, that’s not necessary…” his voice trails off when Dad levels him with a glare, “it is actually. Totally necessary. Um yeah, you’re going to need to stay home today. For sure.”

———————

None of that was the worst part either. The pain and the confusion, collapsing in his dad’s arms. None of that was bad at all. Feeling Derek’s painful howl echoing through his bones. That was nothing. Nothing at all compared to this.

Dad insisted that he bring him and the book down to the library. That he show him around this place and meet his book goddess, or Lou. Whichever one of them is here. But the problem is, it’s not happening. 

“Nothing is happening,” Dad points out.

“Wow, thanks, didn’t realize that, I’m glad you could assist me today Captain Obvious.”

“Stiles.”

“Sorry. I know,” he plops down on the floor in the entryway of the public library. The same one-floor library it’s always been. Scrubbing at his face with his hands, pulling his cheeks down away from his eyes to do the scary face he was always doing when he was a kid, telling anyone who would listen that his eyes were falling out of his head, and then he’d throw two marbles across the floor. 

Only this time he has no marbles, “I’ve lost my marbles,” he announces, “literally and figuratively,” but when he blinks the fog out of his eyes, he’s upstairs, “oh thank Hale,” rising to his feet, “c’mon Dad, we’ve got,” when his hand lands on his dad’s shoulders, it’s not his dad. It’s way too narrow to be his dad, “oh, it’s you,” drawing his hand back to his own body as it sparks and zaps where he’s touching her shoulder, “uh, Lou?” waving a hand in the space in front of her face. 

She’s frozen there. He can’t even see her breathing, “what is happening? Lou? Dad?”

Rushing over to the window, the town below him is frozen too. Including Dad. He’s standing right outside the library, stilled in a run, heading towards the sidewalk, like he’s running after something. Stiles cranes his neck, and loses his breath when he sees himself. Suspended there in what he can only assume is the Alpha Pack he’s heard so much (barely anything at all) about. Stiles has blood dripping out of a head wound, like someone bashed him with a blunt object and he’s thrown over the shoulder of that giant guy that makes Derek look small. There’s another, a woman, the one who needs a pedicure, she’s got her hands wrapped around the cordage that’s tying Isaac’s wrist. She’s paused there, mid-tug, as she sneers at him.

He startles and very manfully squeaks when a hand lands on his shoulder. Turning to face whoever his abductor is, he’s met with his mother’s eyes, “Mom?”

“You have to hurry,” she ushers him to take the steps towards her. As soon as he moves forward, she moves backward, she’s floating across the library floor, down the aisle that Derek set fire to in Stiles’s visions the first time they were here together, “you have to hurry,” she repeats, flinging her hands at the shelf, causing the entire row of books to fall to the floor in a clatter, “you have to hurry.”

“I hear you,” Stiles tells her, “but which one?” he motions towards the books. When his hand is out, palm down, over top of them, one of them darts up, sticks to his fingers, forces his hand to turn. His mouth starts moving, but he has no idea what he’s saying, an ember burns through the book in his hand, lands on his palm and he doesn’t move, doesn’t feel it, watches as it burns through layers of flesh. His mouth won’t stop moving, the words pouring out like a song, the pages flipping in front of his eyes, smoldering at his fingertips. 

Suddenly, it’s gone. All of it. 

He’s standing in the entryway, Dad is looking at him, his mouth opening to tell him, “nothing is happening.”

“I know!” he grabs Dad’s arm, jerks him towards the interior of the library. The one-floor public library and ducks behind the desk. The librarian seems none too thrilled, but Dad is quick on removing his Sheriff ID from his pocket, and giving her a placating expression. Stiles can barely breathe, his chest wanting to explode form the inside out, he can feel the pulses of his tattoo, every branch of it like it’s twisting inside of him as the door swings open. Footsteps. Three people. One large man. The click of nails on the marble floor. The woman. And the sound of light footsteps. With an extra surface of contact, sliding, prodding the ground in front of him. Like he’s leading himself. A cane. He’s blind. A blind wolf? No. Not possible.

“Can I help you find anything?” the librarian asks when they come to a halt on the other side of the desk.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a young man come in here? About this tall? Maybe with his father. Dark hair, light skin,” how does he know what Stiles looks like if he’s blind? Why is Stiles assuming it’s the blind guy talking? Because it’s a guy, and the big brute looks like he only uses growls and roars. That’s kind of a rude assumption. After all, that’s what he assumed about Derek. And he’s only mostly right on that account. 

“No, haven’t seem him. Meeting for a study group? Those are usually in the back corner there, if I see him come in, I’ll turn him in your direction,” her hands are on the desk, her spine is straight and her voice is certain. 

Stiles is holding his breath, he’s going to pass out, he’s sure. And when he thuds against the floor, they’ll hear it. Why can’t they hear his heart beating, and his dad’s, and it’d be just a little pool of heartbeats in here if they’d listen, and they’d know they were back here. Oh Hale, they’re going to die. Being ripped apart by the Alpha Pack in the middle of the library is so not what he wants his headstone to say. He wants something like ‘Badass son of John and Claudia Stilinski. Loving husband of Derek Hale.’ Wait? Really? ‘Savior of Beacon Hills. The one and only Stiles Stilinski’. Or probably his real name. And what is this? A headstone or an introduction for comedy night at The Jungle? Or drag night. Do they have comedy night there? That’d be fun. He can picture Derek’s constipated expressions if Stiles ever dragged him to a comedy show. Oh that’s worth surviving the Alpha Library Attack 2014 if he’s ever… Dad’s elbow is suddenly in his ribs.

“What?” he mouths it. He does not whisper it. There is no noise.

Dad gives him the Move Sign. Oh. Okay. The Alphas must have left the building. Along with Elvis. 

Stiles cranes his head around the desk, making sure the coast is clear. When he looks over his shoulder at Dad, and nods, they both move. Making a quick and quiet exit. They’re in the cruiser and heading home when Stiles finally takes a breath, a real one, and tells him, “wait, no. We need to go to the loft. We need to find Derek.”

“Of course we do,” Dad sighs heavily. Stiles is certain he’s wondering what he’s done in a previous life to deserve whatever this day is that’s happening right now.


	15. Don't Stay

Don’t Stay

Derek thought he stood a chance against Kali. He was wrong, and now the twins have become one being and they’re terrifying. They’re holding his hands behind his back, where Kali brought him to his knees in the middle of the loft. She’s leaning into his face now, her claws at his throat, “c’mon Derek, don’t you want to play? I’m not done yet,” she taps on his jaw, slices a thin line that would heal quickly were it any other instrument delivering the blow. It doesn’t help that his body is already having a hard time prioritizing which wound to close first. He’d prefer the gaping chest wound, but the arm that the twins are wrenching out of socket is the thing that’s going to send him over the edge if this doesn’t end soon.

“I will find them Derek. I will find your betas. I will bring them here, and you will kill them. Every last one of them,” she taps her claw on his chin and he hears his arm snap. 

A rush of pain torches his body, he’s weakening, unable to hold himself up any longer. Kali’s foot plants itself on his chest, keeping him on his knees when he slouches forward. His ears rushing, blind with a mixture of rage and pain. He doesn’t hear it when Stiles is walking up the stairs outside, he doesn’t hear him until he’s shoving the loft door open and rushing inside. His dad right behind him.

“Well, what do we have here?” Kali croons, finally releasing Derek to walk towards the door. 

“Get out,” Derek rasps towards Stiles, his voice weak and barely above a whisper. The twins snarl behind him, tugging his arms tighter. As though he’s in any shape to move. He forces his head to turn, towards Stiles, who’s mouth is slack jawed, eyes wide. Sheriff’s hand is on his arm, grip tight, like he can’t decide what’s more important; removing his son or saving the day. But this isn’t some kind of situation that he’s been trained for. He jerks on Stiles’s arm and Derek repeats, “get out,” this time aiming it at John, knowing he’s more likely to listen than his son is. 

Apparently he’s not much more likely to listen though. He jerks Stiles behind him and goes for his side-holster, “let him go,” he tells the twins with a steady, commanding voice. 

The growl that emits behind Derek chills him to the bone, the hold only tightening. Flashes of pain sparking and colliding throughout his body, his consciousness growing blurry, “get out,” he tries again, summoning all the energy he has left. His vision narrows, blackness seeping in, focusing on Stiles, drawing all of his senses in on the glowing under his shirt, the softness of it now, the calming draw to it. Derek closes his eyes, knowing it’ll be a long time before they open again. 

It’s dark at first, in his closed lids. And quiet. Everything is so still. The only noise is distant, but coming closer. Footsteps. Nearing slowly. A low whistling begins to filter through, light and airy. It’s a tune Derek knows. He hasn’t heard it in years and it makes tears rise, “Nathan,” he hears himself whisper.

A lantern appears, Nathan's soft smile in the glow of it. Walking towards Derek, “are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

He extends his hand, he’s still eighteen, the age he was when he burned to death, “to come with us.”

“Come with you where?” 

“To stay. Derek,” he leans forward, crouching to Derek’s level, “come on, get up, let’s go.”

He does as he’s told, his hand landing on Nathan’s palm, it’s bigger than his. When Derek looks down, he’s a teenager again. Barely learning his own power and about to lose his entire family. Echoes start to bounce off the darkness around them, with every sound, every voice, every laugh the darkness recedes a little more. He knows those sounds. He knows them. They’re his, a ball of things he hasn’t felt in so long rises in his chest. The sound of home, of happy, of content, safe, and love falls all around him. 

They’re here. All of them. They’re sitting around the dinner table. Talking, smiling, “Mom,” Derek hears himself whisper. Lucas balanced on her knee as she spoons some food into his mouth, his ears pop and he attacks the meal wholeheartedly until Mom pulls the spoon away and tells him to mind his manners. Cora is pigtails and sharp grins, tossing a pea at Laura who catches it without looking and throws it back down the table where Derek snatches it before it hits Cora’s face. He flicks it over towards Nathan, it comes to a halt in the middle of the table, floats there and turns a shimmering gold while Dad clears his throat, telling everyone to knock it off with the horseplay at the dinner table. 

“How?” Derek whispers, closing his hand tighter in Nathan’s grip.

“We’re here little brother. We’ll always be right here. Waiting.”

“I want to come. I want to…”

“Don’t you want to see what you’d miss?” his eyes land on Derek’s, all the colors of nature and a flick of purple as he smiles at him, snapping his fingers on his free hand. The table disappears, so does the house. They’re standing in the field at school, watching graduation. A graduation ceremony. Stiles is walking across the stage with a grin, a mischievous sparkle in his eye, he’s going to accept his diploma. Derek scans the crowd of graduates, rushing to find the faces of Scott, Allison, Lydia, and his breath catches when he sees Erica, Boyd, Isaac. Isaac who is leaning back in boredom until his eyes land on Derek’s and he straightens himself immediately. 

“The Alpha Pack? They…”

“If you choose it Derek,” Nathan tells him firmly, snapping his long fingers once again. This time the scene clears to a college dorm. Stiles standing on the steps fiddling with his hoodie strings and watching the street. Waiting until he sees the Camaro, then taking the steps quickly down to rush to the curb, tossing his arms around Derek’s neck as soon as he gets out of the car.

Another snap of his fingers and it’s a wedding. Erica with flowers in her hair, grinning sharply as she walks the aisle towards Boyd. It’s another snap and another wedding, this time Scott and Allison. There’s a baby on Boyd’s shoulder, sound asleep and drooling. Another snap and Derek is down on one knee, Stiles’s long fingers grasped in his and a wicked grin on his face as he nods enthusiastically. Derek’s heart stutters, looking at the tattoos that have etched themselves all over his body. They’re dancing with joy, captivating his attention for long enough that he doesn't even hear the next snap. 

Nathan is gone. He’s alone in a house. A log cabin with a windowed ceiling, he walks the stairs to the master bedroom. Quiet on his feet. Careful in his motions. Hearing the rustling of two bodies in the dim glow of a small bedroom down the hall. He follows the familiar heartbeat, hearing another, a little quicker and smaller, pushing less blood through a smaller frame. He takes a deep breath and pushes the bedroom door open. Stiles is leaning over a changing table, pulling up a clean set of pajamas on the fat legs of a newborn, shushing and singing interchangeably as he draws the baby towards his chest. He’s smiling, eyes tired, but the only scent in the air is contentedness, the tattoos on his back, three spirals and scrolls weaving their way across his shoulder-blades, swooping down his ribs and circling back towards his spine. The baby gurgles and Stiles sits on a rocking chair, his face soft, eyes not leaving the baby until he spots Derek in the doorway. His expression softens even more and he nods at him. His voice whisper quiet when he breathes, “I love this. And you,” his heartbeat calm, even, and honest.

Another snap and he’s standing on the porch, watching himself trudging through the woods. A wolf pup under each arm and a scowl on his face. It’s done raining but he’s covered in mud and so are the pups, both squirmy, bitting at him. He turns his head to see Stiles standing on the other side of the porch, leaning against the rail wearing a smirk. A little girl that looks just like him, her head leaning against his hip. 

“How?” Derek wonders, looking over his shoulder to see Nathan standing with his arms crossed over his chest.

“You look happy.”

“I, but I,” Derek looks from himself to the pups, to Stiles, to the girl, and all he can wonder again is, “how?”

“Magic finds you, remember?” he reaches out again, “when you’re ready, that is.”

“But he’s not ready, he’s only a child.”

“So were you,” he takes a step forward and grabs Derek’s wrist. As soon as his fingers grip, the scene disappears again. They’re back in the kitchen.

“I don’t understand.”

“We live on. We will always live on. And we’ll wait,” Nathan’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, the ceiling above him beginning to smear with stars and moon.

“You can’t just wait for decades. You can’t just…”

“Sure we can. And we will. We’ll wait for all of you. If you’d like.”

“No, I don’t want you stuck here, frozen in time.”

“We’re not stuck. We chose it. We chose to wait.”

“Why?”

“We love you.”

“But it was all my fault! How can you love me when,” his voice chokes off, his hands rise to wipe at tears that have begun to fall, they’re his grown man hands again. The contact to his face reveals stubble under his palms, “how? How can you wait? How can you still love me? It was…”

“Not your fault Derek. It’s not your fault. And now you choose. You can have,” his hand extends, sweeping through the air around them and creating an image reel, “everything Derek. You can have everything. But you need to fight for it.”

“I don’t know how,” everything is getting blurry at the edges, Nathan’s face starting to fade in front of him.

“You know how, you’ve always known how. You just forgot for a minute, is all,” he smiles faintly, his body turning to sand and falling away into the darkness.

“Don’t go!”

“Don’t stay, wake up now,” the last part of him in the black falling around him, are his fingers, snapping one final time.

————————

His eyelids are heavy, body floating, smell of antiseptic tingling in his nostrils. Pain ebbing and flowing. Being drawn away from him slowly by a hand that’s on his wrist. 

“Welcome back Big Guy,” Stiles’s face appears like a floating head above him. A worried smile on his lips, yellow hues glowing under his t-shirt.

He blinks, eyes tracking over to the body beside him, the one taking his pain. It’s Isaac, sitting there, still, and calm, a tiny smile rising for the split second of eye contact he offers.

“What happened?” his voice sounds like it hasn’t been used in months, “how long was I out?”

“Well,” Stiles scratches the back of his head and ducks out of Derek’s line of sight.

“We kicked their asses,” Erica answers, elbowing Isaac aside and taking his place, inky lines traveling her skin as soon as she sits down. Her free hand slides along his jaw, “you could have let us know.”

“Why? So you could rush in and get yourselves killed?”

“Obviously because that’s totally what happened,” she rolls her eyes.

“What did happen?”

“Stiles happened,” she responds with a smirk. 

“No, I, just, kind of,” he sounds near, and Derek can feel him near, prickling his skin, but his eyes don’t want to focus on anything further away than Erica’s face, “I stopped time and summoned your betas. I guess. And then just, yeah, I don’t even know.”

“You can’t just play with magic like that, you’re going to end up killing yourself,” Derek turns his head, trying to find Stiles in the dimming light in the loft. He wants to smack him, shove him against a wall and not let him up until he agrees to take it slow. To stop practicing without a coach, without some training. Hell, knowing the language he’s using would be a pretty damn good start.

But when he finally finds his eyes, when they rise and meet Derek’s, there’s too much written in them, there’s too much feeling, drawing too many things out of Derek and his breath catches. Stiles’s hand flits across the air between them and then lands on his chest for a brief moment, just enough to draw that electricity out, to zap through Derek’s body and urge more healing. Then it’s gone.

“It’s a start,” he shrugs.

“A start of what?” Isaac wonders from the doorway.

“I figured out how to heal him slowly,” a smile plays at the corners of his mouth, “so it’s a start.”

“And you also figured out how to stop time and steal us out of classes to save his ass,” Erica reminds him, “I’d say it’s more than a start.”

A pink flush rises in his pale cheeks, eyes drop to the bed between him and Derek. 

“And your dad?” Derek wonders.

“Oh, I think he’s going to need some mental and emotional recovery time, but he’s fine. I’ll have to get him some wolfsbane bullets,” he winks.

Derek rolls his eyes and Stiles clarifies, “for the bad guys! The bad wolves,” he looks tired. Derek can see it around his eyes, and hear it in his voice, but he’s not physically hurting, “I’m fine,” he answers even though Derek didn’t ask, “just tired. The same cannot be said for you though.”

“I’m fine,” he responds automatically and Erica snorts, calling his bluff with a pointed look towards the black lines in her arms, “don’t overdo it,” he reminds her softly.

“Hey, I barely broke a sweat, never even broke a nail, so I’m good. I could do this all night.”

“Everyone else? How did,” he jolts, about to get up and check, find every member of his pack and check them over. Stiles’s hand lands on his chest again, zapping with a healing spark for a moment, enough to knock his wind out while he pushes him back down into the bed.

“Everyone is fine. Everyone is in one piece. And the Alpha Pack is on their way out of Beacon Hills for good. Minus some power, and maybe a wolf or two, but…”

“What does that mean?”

“I didn’t kill them,” his eyes are round and innocent, like he had no hand in anything that went on all day.

Derek nearly laughs.

“What?! I didn’t! Kali and Ennis will never shift again, the twins are thinking over their pack allegiance and Deucalion pretty much walked out with his tail tucked between his legs. Something kind of, uh, weird happened when Scott took him down to his back with the help of one of Allison’s arrows of course, but uh, yeah, Scott’s got red eyes now.”

“Without killing him?”

“Yeah. Look, I know you guys…”

“I’ve never seen Scott that pissed off,” Erica interrupts, “as soon as he saw what they did to you, he just lost it.”

“He did,” Isaac agrees, leaning against the doorway, his eyes landing quickly on Derek and then flitting away again.

Derek tilts his head, he should probably look at the the physical damage that Isaac seems to be having so much trouble keeping his gaze on but morbid curiosity keeps drawing it over anyway. As soon as he tips his chin, a set of long, gentle fingers grip his face, “nope. Don’t even look. I did a pretty bad job of cleaning it up and it’s all black and oozy and stuff, but we’re working on it. No sense in grossing yourself out, dude,” his face crinkles up, “yeah, no, just don’t even look. It’s gross.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“It’s what I’m here for. Pep talks, stopping time, you know, kicking some magical ass.”

“Magical ass kicking,” Erica corrects him. 

“Holy shit, I must be tired,” at the admission, he stumbles back and plops down in the chair beside the bed. His feet landing on the mattress beside Derek, and a yawn escaping him, “yep. Tired.”

———————

By the time morning’s soft yellow light is filtering through the window, Stiles has made his way over to the bed, lying beside Derek with his face half smushed in the pillow, his mouth open and his hand wrapped around Derek’s wrist. A steady, easy nudge of healing every so often, trickling into Derek’s system without Stiles even noticing it. 

Everyone else has either drifted back home, or in Isaac’s case, back down the hall and into his own room. Derek narrows in on his breathing, sound asleep, for just a moment of comfort. He can hear Peter now too. In that state between sleep and wake, he’s nearly certain Peter never sleeps for real anymore. Not after all that time spent comatose. 

When he draws his focus back to that familiar heartbeat, the one right next to him, he allows it to settle. Taking the moment, these brief things that are so perfect, these things that won’t last, these things he can’t have, he can’t have them. No matter what his strange dreams told him yesterday, no matter what his dead brother showed him. He knows better than to hope. To believe in happiness. 

Stiles’s eyes dart open quickly, not even the slightest change in his heartbeat or breathing, nothing unsettling in the air around him. He blinks once, takes a deep breath and smiles at Derek, letting his eyes drift closed again and his body drift closer.


	16. Damn Werewolves

Damn Werewolves

When Stiles woke up with his face mashed against Derek Hale’s armpit, his initial instinct was to run. Quickly and very very far away. But then he realized that Derek was wide awake. Just lying there. And if he wanted Stiles to move, he would move Stiles.

So instead of running away, Stiles slips a hand over his mouth to wipe off some drool, then slides back, away from the heat radiating off of the big brute beside him. Said big brute does nothing to indicate that this is weird. 

Stiles groans when he unfurls into a long stretch, “holy Hale, everything is burning with lactic acid,” flopping flat on his back, staring at the ceiling to avoid eye contact with all the colors of the wind over there, “no lectures please, I will find a coach. It was just, you know, life or death yesterday. Guess I chose your life.”

Derek clears his throat, the sound of it forcing Stiles’s eyes to close, willing away a flush in his cheeks.

“Don’t thank me. I’d never live a normal life again if I had to carry around Derek Hale’s gratitude.”

He snorts out a half laugh, enough of one that Stiles turns his head, lets his focus linger on Derek’s face. Expecting his profile, he’s met instead with the full-on force of his beauty. How does someone look so good this early in the morning, the day after nearly dying? 

“Anyway, I should,” Stiles darts up to sitting, leaning a palm against Derek’s chest once more to give him the last nudge of healing, but Derek grasps his fingers instead. Stiles’s mouth does something really cool and appropriate, it totally doesn’t fall open and hang that way. Not at all.

“I’m fine,” soft eyes, steady voice. 

Stiles believes it, “okay,” swallowing hard when Derek doesn’t release his fingers just yet, “I just, I figured out that the healing thing is easy to control, it’s all just a mind thing. Probably like your shift, you know, the whole anger is my anchor,” he furls his brows and makes a mad face at Derek. To which Derek almost smiles, and Stiles bites back a blush, “I can feel it, kind of like a living thing inside me. And I guess when I put my hand on your chest yesterday, I closed my eyes and envisioned a scrape healing slowly. Instead of the gruesome gaping chest wound that you were dying from, so small steps are key,” he shrugs. Clearing his throat, “anyway, I’m going to the bathroom and then I’m going to check out your wound and we’ll see what our next step should be, right?”

Derek nods, squeezing his hand before letting it go. And that is enough, that is plenty, that is so much more than enough. More than any words he could ever say to Stiles. It makes his legs feel shaky when he stands, it makes his world narrow down to nothing more than this room, this bed, this man who’s eyes haven’t drifted away from him. Softness in them, that if Stiles was a gambling man, he’d say was appreciation and maybe more-than-friends, but he’s not much of a gambler. Not when it comes to emotions. 

———————

Derek is sitting, propped against the headboard when he gets back from cleaning himself up a bit. And how is it that there is not even a hint of sleep sour on him? How is that fair? There’s no stink of dead or decaying flesh that should be lingering off a mess like that either. 

Damn werewolves. 

“Ready?” he asks when he plops down beside his hip, fingers on the edge of the bandage that he taped down kind of hurriedly yesterday to just cover it and make himself stop looking at it.

Derek half nods, and he’ll take that for a go-ahead. Peeling back gently, revealing a gash, smaller than it was yesterday, but still enough to probably kill a human. Healing around the edges, black oozing slowly from the center, “oh, that is nasty dude.”

Derek snorts a response, his eyes not leaving Stiles’s, “I’ll take your word for it.”

“That’s probably best. Does it hurt?”

He shrugs, which might as well be a nod. His skin tone is off, pale. Features drawn and tired, “did you sleep last night? Or did I spend the night kicking you and drooling on you and completely disrupting anything you might have possibly had?”

A tiny edge of a smile threatens his lips, shrugging again, “you were fine.”

“Yeah, I,” running his hand over the back of his head, “I shouldn’t’ve,” when his hand falls away from his head, Derek grabs it, and knocks all the wind out of his lungs, and all the words out of his mouth.

“You were fine. Thank you.”

It’s sincere, making everything inside Stiles twist and that super awesome mural start glowing, “shit,” tugging for his flannel, finding that it’s not there.

“It’s me, Stiles, I already know. Don’t hide that from me.”

“But, I, it’s just…”

“Beautiful,” Derek finishes. And Stiles chokes on his own spit. And it’s totally a normal reaction. For sure. But Derek must be suffering from debilitating pain that is making him completely delusional if he thinks anything about Stiles is beautiful. 

It makes him want to do something stupid, like kiss Derek. Just attempt it, just lean in and see if he pulls away, or shoves Stiles’s face, or disembowels him. Worst case scenario, he tries to kiss Derek and Derek kills him. Best case scenario, he tries to kiss Derek, succeeds and it turns out he only let him because of his weakened state, regrets it terribly tomorrow, and makes every little gain they’ve made as friends since the whole stupid start of this weird tattoo stuff strain and break. And then they’re even worse than back to where they started, they’re awkward and tense and the whole pack can sense it and it ruins the entire dynamic.

“Stiles.”

“Derek,” his eyes dart over those perfect lips, chiseled jawline, and goddamn those eyes. Those eyes that are looking right at Stiles like he can read his every single thought (and maybe he can because of the whole mood ring tattoo thingy).

“It’s okay,” he urges quietly, “I’m fine. You’re fine. Everyone involved is fine, even if I would have ripped their throats out, you guys found a way to solve it without killing anyway,” he admits, a twinkle of something that just might be pride flashing over his expression, “get something to eat. You’re hungry.”

“I’m what?” dazed, actually would be a better word.

“Your stomach is rumbling. Go home, get something to eat with your dad, get a change of clothes. I’m fine.”

“Uh yeah, buddy, the whole black oozing greasy stuff says otherwise,” tilting his head towards the wound he hasn’t re-bandaged yet. 

“It’s healing,” he insists, his gaze staying steady, “besides, if it starts to hurt again, I have plenty of werewolf pain controllers to assist me. I can hear all three of them milling around downstairs pretending not to listen to this conversation.”

“Oh we’re not even pretending!” Erica hollers from downstairs, “we’re listening to every single word. When you gonna kiss him Derek?!”

Stiles squawks. Very manly. And very deep, even timbre response. Derek’s ears turn bright red, his gaze drifts to his hands that are folded over his lap. Shaking his head for a moment. Stiles opens his mouth to attempt humor to change the subject, to make a joke out of the very idea that Derek Hale would kiss Stiles Stilinski, but then his multi-colored irises land on Stiles’s face, knocking his brain clear of all thoughts and processes, and he smiles. Holy Hale, he smiles.

“Sometime when I’m not leaking blood all over the place, and he’s not a minor.”

Stiles’s mouth falls open. He can feel his eyes bug. The mere suggestion is ridiculous. And he can’t get anything past his lips, past his brain that’s turned to white noise. Guess it’s a good thing that stupid mural is enough of a response, flashing red lust at Derek, enough that it’s glowing right back at Stiles and the asshole flashes his alpha eyes! In response! Holy Hale! He’s not joking! He’s not playing some kind of cruel prank, he’s not just playing along with Erica’s suggestion. He’s actually, he’s truly, he’s completely planning on kissing Stiles in the future. In the future when he is no longer seventeen. So that’s, “five months, three days, and,” he looks at his watch, “six hours from now. If we’re still alive, I will fully accept your payment of me saving your ass yesterday, and saving your ass from the lightning wolf thingy, with a kiss. A real, full-on, tongue and…” the rest of the sentence gets stolen from him. Stolen by a warm mouth landing on his, sealing the words in there, never to exit to the ears that belong to the man that is pressing his lips against Stiles’s right now! 

“Oh shit,” he hears himself muffled against Derek’s mouth, he needs to get with the program, he needs to kiss him back, he needs to do something. Something other than just sitting here slack-jawed! Oh shit, oh Hale, he’s going to pull away, he’s going to think that was a terrible, horrible mistake, he’s going to think that was unwanted and the feelings are unreciprocated, and that is not okay! 

Stiles gulps for a breath of air when Derek starts pulling away, and he dives in. He just goes for it. He goes all in. Heading for Derek’s lips and darting right past them with his tongue, meeting Derek’s at the entrance of his mouth and running along the heat of it. And oh Hale, his spine just snapped with tingles, he’s certain of it, he’s going to die right here in Derek’s bed, with Derek’s tongue in his mouth, with Derek’s hands on his arms, with Derek’s shoulder under his palm and oh Hale, that is just, “I’m melting,” he tells Derek very clearly and very not weakly when he leans out again. This time his hand rises, strokes across Stiles’s cheek, cups his chin, and tilts his gaze to meet his, “seriously,” he iterates when his eyes land on hazel, sparked with some intense softness, “melting. Just all over the place. Puddle of Stiles on the floor in Derek Hale’s bedroom.”

A smile toys at the corners of his lips and he leans in slowly this time, lingering with his lips only for a long time. A really long time. So long that something yearning and ridiculous huffs out of Stiles’s mouth and gets tangled on Derek’s lips when he smiles against the kiss, before he slips his tongue out again and is eagerly welcomed right into Stiles’s mouth. 

His hands have moved off his arms, sliding up his sides, around his back and drawing his body closer. It’s not until Stiles is sitting, hip to hip, and his hands are frozen there on Derek’s shoulders, that his arm brushes against Derek’s wound and they both pull back suddenly and harshly. 

“Still hurts, doesn’t it?” Stiles smirks, adjusting himself in his pants, knowing Derek can use more than one sense to know he has a raging hard-on right now, he works on willing it away while Derek works on getting a hold of his breath to not pass out from either the pain or the realization that he just kissed Stiles. Not just once. Not just twice, but three whole separate times, “boner be gone,” he tries, snapping his fingers at his crotch, to which nothing happens other than Derek’s rusty old laugh that is actually starting to sound like second nature instead of some old sound he never uses anymore, and barely recognizes, “it would have been a handy trick if it worked,” he shrugs, eyes trailing over to meet Derek’s. They are absolutely dancing with amusement, and it makes something inside Stiles go all gooey. A happy, smiling Derek is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in his life. That is no exaggeration. 

A reckless, irrational part of him (the main part of him if he’s being honest), lurches forward and presses another kiss to Derek’s closed lips. A quick peck, before he gets up, and walks towards the door, bracing himself for the teasing that’s about to come his way from the betas downstairs, who no doubt, listened to that whole exchange.


	17. Soulmates

Soulmates

The first time Derek feels well enough to shift, he runs. He runs until his tongue is lolling and his breath is hot pants in the air around him. He runs until his feet are tripping over roots and his muscles are burning. 

Stopping for a drink from the creek before he trots to the tree, knowing Stiles is already there. He quiets, makes certain to enter in complete silence. Stiles is sitting cross-legged on the ground, his hand open on his knees, the book spread out in front of him, spark of dust hopping off his fingertips and swirling around the tree. A shimmering white haze overtakes the area surrounding them, and like an old movie on a projector the scene plays out in front of them. 

Teenagers, both of them. Long before Derek ever met them, but he recognizes them immediately. Of course he does. The girl is dark hair and smiles, she’s racing down the trail on the blue bike, calling behind her. The sound is muted, but he knows it’s a taunt aimed at the boy behind her. Behind her on a red bike. He’s tan skin and broad shoulders, body not yet filled out. He’s smiling too, bright and white, his eyes are reflecting all the colors of the woods around them. 

Mom and Dad. Before they were Mom and Dad. 

Derek sits back on his haunches, letting the world spin around him, watching his parents race on their bikes to the old stump of the Nemeton. Mom gets there first, and she hops off her bike with a grin, jumping up and down with her arms in the air, her voice is quiet, floating on the breeze, ebbing and flowing, but he hears it this time, “now I get to tell you the story! You have to sit here and listen, you grumpy old man!”

Dad gets off his bike with a heavy sigh, leaning it against the edge of the tree stump, “fine, you win,” his voice not yet the deep, commanding tone that Derek knew growing up, “I’ll sit here and listen to your fairy tales,” trying to sound uninterested, clear in his eyes twinkling at her, that he’d listen to anything she wanted to say. He reaches out, tucks her hair gently behind her ear with a soft smile, then untucks a blanket from his pack, letting is fall to the ground as he spreads out his hands in the air, the blanket does the same. Mom’s eyes brighten and he produces a flower from thin air, tucking it behind her ear. Motioning for her to sit, with a bow. She laughs, like wind chimes. 

Derek keeps his mouth shut, wanting to call out, wanting to howl, wanting to do something, anything to get their attention. But he knows they aren’t real. This isn’t real. This is just Stiles summoning a memory. So he can finally know who’s bikes those are, the bikes that were left out here to rust in the rain after many years of love, many days spent exploring this woods after school and sometimes during. Time spent falling deeper and deeper in love with one another, like they’re doing now. Sitting on the blanket under the clear blue sky, their bikes waiting like patient sentinels as Mom’s mouth starts to move, her voice growing distant and the edges of the film reel blurring. 

Derek forces himself to stay silent. Watching them fade into the air, the bark of the now grown Nemeton becoming visible once again, the giant leaves scrapping the rainclouds in the sky but not emptying them yet. 

Stiles has a sad smile on his face when the scene recedes, and now his mystery is solved. He clenches his hands into fists on his knees, flicks his fingers out in front of him and a few ladybugs emerge, flitting away. 

“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,” he sighs, reaches for the book to pull into his lap, “your house is on fire and your children are…” he trails off, his gaze dropping to his chest, noticing the soft blues being emitted under his clothes, “shit. Derek, I,” his eyes dart up, looking around the forest until he finds him on the ridge where he’s sitting, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop, I really shouldn’t have done that. I should have just waited until you were ready to talk.”

Derek rises to his feet, slowly plodding through the underbrush and making his way over to Stiles. He doesn’t feel like shifting back yet, so he sits next to him, nuzzling into his neck and gathering his scent.

Stiles’s hands land on his shoulders, taking a tight hold on his fur, “sorry,” he utters again, leaning to rest his forehead against Derek’s, “I feel like I just spied on something super intimate, even if it was just a storytelling session. I just…” he leans out, away from Derek for a moment without taking his hands off him, “you look so much like your Dad but you look so much like your mom at the same time, it’s freaky. Freaky in a really beautiful way,” immediately correcting himself with a half smile, “do you know,” his hand sliding down Derek’s shoulder, smoothing across his side, then back up, “what the story was? You don’t have to answer that now, obviously, if you’re feeling all stubborn and wanting to just stare at me in your wolf suit, then keep it up Big Guy, I’m here for it. You wanna see something cool? I learned it yesterday, Lou helped me, she’s kind of, um, I don’t know how I feel about her yet, but she’s been okay at teaching me stuff. Good actually, she’s been good,” his hands flit off Derek like birds flying away on a waft of air, he utters some whispered words and a butterfly appears. 

It hovers for a moment over his palm then glides, Derek tipping his head back to look at it right as it lands on his nose. Spreading it’s wings, folding them gently again, then taking off, leaving a tiny gust of wind in it’s wake. 

Derek lowers himself to the ground beside Stiles, laying his head in his lap. 

“Hearing you loud and clear, buddy,” his hand lands flat on Derek’s head, warm and comforting between his ears, “I’ll just sit here and practice insects while you use your wolf as an excuse to lay your face by my dick,” he lets out a childish laugh that makes Derek snort, “whatever, you and I both know it,” his hand trails down his neck, lingering between his shoulder-blades as his free hand flits out in front of his face, water droplets shimmering in the sun falling through the leaves of the Nemeton flicking off his fingertips, sparks of silver and gold in every drop, “or water. I guess,” he laughs, “probably shouldn’t screw around with the elements though, huh?”

By the time either of them move again, Stiles has produced an army of insects. All of them flying or crawling away and dissipating into thin air. He leans his head down to rest his chin on Derek’s skull for a moment, taking a deep centering breath, “you don’t have to tell me how awesome I am. I already know,” slipping long fingers into the fur of his cheek, “alright big wolfy, let’s get out of here before it gets dark and I have to rely on my glowing tats to light my way home.”

———————

Stiles spends the walk back to the old house snapping his fingers and creating sparks of dust that dance around them and swirl at their feet. He whistles too, and then sings, “whistle while you work,” and bops his head to it. 

His constant sound and motion has a soothing effect on Derek that he’s never felt anywhere else, normally the sudden moves would make him on edge, but not with Stiles. If he wasn’t moving or talking, then there would be an issue. 

He sighs, plops down on the steps, and covers his face with his hands, “okay Big Guy, go ahead and shift back to your glorious naked self, I’m not looking,” cracking his middle and ring fingers apart to flash a wink at Derek before snapping them shut again. 

It doesn’t matter, and Derek tells him as much, “nudity is just nudity,” even though his eyes are still covered while Derek pulls his boxer briefs up his legs.

“Yeah, but you should still be giving a person permission to ogle you before they just sit here and ogle you. No matter what the relationship between you and said ogler is,” he’s drumming his fingers over his fingers in the center of his face, shifting his legs around. His whole body getting squirmy at the mere suggestion that there should be some kind of definition for the relationship between Derek and said ogler. 

Derek zips his jeans, tugs on his t-shirt and lowers himself next to Stiles with a sigh. Close enough to feel his warmth, not close enough to touch. 

His twinkly eye appears when he cranes his head, parting his fingers once again to take a peek, then dropping them away from his face to wipe them along this pants. Derek reaches out before he can tell himself not to, snags his hand and laces their fingers. Stiles’s breath catches, the tattoo glowing through his clothing sending off hints of confused reds and yellows. Desire and comfort. That is the ideal combination at this stage of their relationship. At some point, Derek hopes it can be love. But what is love if not desire and comfort? 

He sighs, raising his eyes from the glow to Stiles’s eyes. Round and wide, his mouth caught in a space between shocked and wondrous, “the story was about soulmates,” he hears himself say, “my mom and dad,” it hitches, the two names foreign on his tongue and in his mind. Spending all these years forcing himself not to think about them, not to miss them, not to give himself even an ounce of forgiveness, “the idea that no matter what happens, there will always be one person in your life that make you feel whole,” he can feel a warm blush creeping up his neck, willing it to stay away from his cheeks he takes a deep breath.

And Stiles cuts in. Of course he does, “like a predestined, I’m yours and you’re mine kind of thing. Like my soul just calls out to you in every lifetime and we always end up together?”

“I,” Derek’s mouth opens, the words stalling out on his tongue, and the pull of Stiles’s eye contact forcing him to maintain, “well, I…”

“Ran out of words, didn’t you?” he smirks, tugging tight on Derek’s hand, reaching over with his free one to trace the pad of his index fingers over every knuckle, “I know, and you know, that I prefer research, and theories that I can test out, that I can find some kind of valid scientific reason behind. But then this,” he waves his hand over his midsection, “happened, and the whole best friend bit by a werewolf thing happened. Or in the opposite order, anyway, but you know. Kind of blows a lot of science away, doesn’t it? So maybe I can’t test out a hypothesis on the whole soulmate idea, but I can have one. And my hypothesis is this,” his eyes drop away from Derek’s for a moment, breath shuddering when the flit back over to grab and hold his gaze, “I’m yours, and you,” his finger jabbing into Derek’s chest, “are mine,” his smile turns into a wide, bright grin, “whether you like it or not.”

“Stiles,” it sounds like a promise, breathy and ridiculous, only one word, but a promise nonetheless.

His finger lands on Derek’s mouth, his eyebrows dip towards anger and Stiles laughs, “get mad at me all you want Big Guy, but,” hand moving up to push at Derek’s brows, “that’s better,” fingers falling, trailing across his jaw, thumb denting into the center of his chin, “you’re going to say I’m seventeen, I’m just a kid, I don’t even know what I want, I don’t know how big any of this is because my brain isn’t even fully developed yet so how could I even begin to grasp the enormity of the magic bits, and the soulmate bits, and it’s only been like what? A week? Two weeks since the etching of my welcome mat? So it’s all too fast for me to even catch up. Problem there Derek, is that I’m a fast learner and I have the ability of ADHD to make it so my brain can latch onto seven thousand different things at one time and none of them ever really get solved until like hours or days later, but they do eventually get solved. I’m a master at thinking things through,” his eyes are dancing, bright and magnetic, “and I’ve thought about, obsessed over, fixated on, you. You, Derek. Ever since I first laid eyes on you. So that’s more than long enough to draw a few conclusions. And my conclusion is that yes, while I’m seventeen and it’d be illegal to have sex, which is very disappointing by the way, I don’t want to just have sex, I want to have mind-blowing, soul-altering, physically-transforming, soulmate sex; it can wait. I can wait. You can wait. We’re bound together for eternity, so what’s the harm in waiting a few months?”

Derek would nod, but Stiles’s grip on his chin is tight. Easy enough to move it, if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to. Instead, he flashes his wolf eyes at him. And Stiles’s mouth drops open, he sputters for a moment, utters, “but we can still make-out,” before he dives into Derek’s mouth. 

Derek’s surprised grunt gets muffled between them, not deterring Stiles in the least as his hand slides over his jaw, fingers through his hair and rests on the back of his head. Derek reaches out, allowing himself to touch, to feel. Allowing a full explosion of colors and swirling sparks of dust to dance around in his closed lids as his fingers follow the trail of Stiles’s arm. Not stopping until his hand is splayed on his back, right between his shoulder-blades. He allows his senses to be overridden with everything Stiles. The beat of his heart, the expansion and contraction of his lungs as he draws back to take a gasping breath. The stutter in his chest when he darts back in again, when his body brings itself unconsciously closer until their thighs are flush with one another. Derek allows everything else around them to disappear completely. And for the first time in so long, he feels safe. 

Stiles pulls away, for just a moment, resting his forehead to Derek’s, wondering breathlessly, “too soon to tell you I love you?” not allowing Derek to answer before he’s back against his mouth. Traveling every surface and every corner like it’s his to conquer.


	18. Nervous Virgin Teenager

Nervous Virgin Teenager

So here’s something cool. And Stiles actually means cool for real, not the sarcastic here’s something cool. Lou (who Stiles is still not entirely certain how he feels about, but he’s pretty sure she means well, she’s just kind of intimidating, and super powerful, but she’s stuck in the library in some magical realm of existence because she broke too many rules while learning her powers back in like the BC ages or something) taught him how to conceal his tattoos! So he can go back to school! Yay! Well, the yay is totally sarcastic, but after an extended leave of absence that his father somehow convinced the principal to let him do online learning instead, which was a total fucking nightmare, since the whole ADHD thing and computers and there are so many tabs you can have open at one time, and when something gets boring, which is basically every single part of school unless it’s the part of chemistry where you get to use the bunsen burners. Anyway, after doing online learning for long enough to know he’s not cut out for online learning, he’s kind of glad to be back in school. Sans glowing tattoos. 

Well, Dad made him rejoin the lacrosse team. Which sucks, but when he’s running laps for shooting off at the mouth, which is all the time, he gets to enter a zen-like trance and just be alone in his cluttered head. And that’s cool. Usually. Except for the time he accidentally created a snowstorm over the field. Oops. 

And he also gets to hit people sometimes. Mostly he just gets hit, but Derek is teaching him how to take a hit without falling over so that’s fun, even if sometimes he falls over on purpose to drive them both to the ground, Derek muffles his pain with his werewolfy pain thievery, and they lay in the dirt and make-out for awhile instead. Becoming a better lacrosse player through kissing. Yep, sounds like a foolproof plan. 

It’s working, it’s actually working because he gets some time on the field! Long enough to maybe use a little magic to slow down the goalie and score a goal. You’re not trying if you’re not cheating. Oh, and the glare he gets from Derek is totally worth it. So ha! One point Stiles Stilinski for all eternity on the score card in one single game in his last year in high school! While his super hot boyfriend sits in the stands with his dad. And that’s not at all awkward for him, and it totally doesn’t make Stiles smile like the smug little bastard that he is, knowing that Derek is in extreme emotional pain having to watch a really stupid, boring, high school game next to the Sheriff who’s underaged son he’s dating. And respecting. The respecting part is the part that’s important. Right?

Right. Derek is such a prude he won’t even let Stiles pop his button on his jeans. He’s all good with some shirtless rubbing of hands all over perfect muscles and some pants-on grinding and dry humping until it’s not so dry in the old under-drawers. Derek seems to have heart-eyes for tracing the loops and swirls of Stiles’s tattoos, and sometimes more loops and swirls shoot out under his fingers, which is cool. It doesn’t hurt when they appear that way. 

Stiles jolts out of his daydreams when the ball goes flying past his head and Scotty hollers his name. Whoops. He’s benched now. His moment of glory is over. 

———————

The other cool thing that happens is he gets accepted to every university he applies to. And he’s going! And that’s final! According to his dad and Derek and he’s not sure when it happened, but it’s almost like he has two dads sometimes. Sort of. Okay, so one dad who has always been his dad and has always looked out for his best interests (aside from the whole alcohol debacle that’s he’s totally moved on from), and then one dad who comes over and cooks dinner and also has his best interests in mind. But that dad is a totally inappropriate, okay, nope, lost it.

He has a dad. And a boyfriend who sometimes sounds like a dad when he’s saying things like, “long distance relationships are hard. But you’re going to Stanford. And that’s final. It’s not even that far away.”

And there’s nothing at all dad-like about him when Stiles is lying on his back in the middle of Derek’s bed watching him fold laundry and trying to seduce him. Maybe he’s not intentionally trying to seduce him, but he’s got his laundry day clothes on, which are a ragged old t-shirt that barely hangs off his muscled frame, and pair of basketball shorts that makes Stiles want to have a sudden burst of wind come through the closed window (open now, thank you very much) and blow head on, right at him, to outline that delicious…

“Stiles,” it’s a low warning growl.

“I was going for wind in the hair, runway walk. I missed my mark,” he snaps and the breeze stops, the window closes, “you need to get some screens. So we can have open windows in here.”

“Noted.”

“Your sass is noted too,” he flicks his fingers and water droplets fling off them to sprinkle on Derek’s face. Derek shakes his head and gives Stiles the Murder Brows. Stiles only laughs, flops back down on the bed and wills a flower to grow out of his crotch, “deflower me Derek.”

“No.”

“I’ve saved this flower for you. For my entire life, I’ve battled against horny cheerleaders, and virtuous maidens, testosterone ridden jocks, and science nerds who want to blind me with science and take my virginity. The whole lot of them. I’ve saved this flower for you. To lay at your alter and beg you to take it. I’ll…” the wind is all gushed out of him at the full weight of Derek Hale laying over him. Okay, so not his full weight, he’s holding probably all of it up with his ridiculous arms that are snuggled tight against Stiles’s ribs, his face appearing with a vicious grin on it before it’s lowered into Stiles’s face and he closes the distance between them with a very exuberant kiss. 

He doesn’t pull away until Stiles is certain he’s suffocating right there, his dick is so hard it hurts, and he knows this is it. This is totally it. He is going to finally be deflowered. 

Then Derek gets up.

And walks away.

“What?! Where are you going?!”

“The next load of laundry is dry.”

Stiles slaps his hand down on the bed beside him, and all this cute respectful, coy, sexy stuff is wonderful and all, but, “I’m going to need you to sex me up Derek or I’ll lose the tiny, itty, bitty fraction of self-confidence that I have. Thinking that my boyfriend isn’t sexually attracted to me, and,” there he is, all concerned brows and everything, charging across the room to rip Stiles’s pants off. Clear off! And attack his dick with his hot, glorious mouth like Stiles’s dick is the last piece of food on the Earth and Derek will die without ingesting it immediately! 

“Oh, oh, that is,” his hands immediately slip through Derek’s hair, finding and grasping desperately, “that is so good, oh my Hale, Derek, that is,” over, “shit, Derek, it’s, I’m such a virgin,” he tugs at his hair, wanting to warn him, tell him, he’s about to have a hot load shoot right down his throat. But Derek’s hand lands on his lower abdomen, gentling, steadying, and absolutely, totally, completely willing to have that load go right down the hatch. His gorgeous eyes flit up to meet Stiles’s and that is the last tiny shred of permission he needs to just lose it, okay, wow. The tattoos are sparkling so bright, they’re projecting against the ceiling. All swirled reds and yellows, oranges creeping in around the edges conveying enthusiasm, excitement, and warmth. Yep, sounds about right.

“Holy Hale,” letting himself deflate against the mattress, hands falling from Derek’s head to his shoulders as he adjusts his weight, starts his trek up the bed, nudging at Stiles’s legs with his knees until he’s got a spot to lay between them. Stiles lifts them just enough to tangle around his knees, “too lazy for hips,” he mumbles, “but I’m totally going to suck your dick when I come out of this coma.”

Derek snorts, nosing along his collarbone, dipping into the hollow of his throat and leaving a long press of lips there before nudging at his chin to get him to expose his neck.

“Fine,” Stiles sighs, pretending it’s some big deal, and such an inconvenience to let his boyfriend leave smoldering kisses all over his neck. Smoldering, not slobbering. And it’s such an inconvenience to have his eyes roll back in his head and his whole body drifting on a cloud, the glow of his tats creating a nightlight like haze in the room that’s not even dark yet. 

His hand rises, falling into Derek’s hair while the kiss trail climbs his jawline and stops, lingering over his lips. Forcing his eyes to open, he’s met with super-intense-Derek-Hale-eye-contact. 

“Oh! Yes! I’m reciprocating! I am!” as feeling is starting to seep back into his body, coming down off the cloud, and realizing Derek’s rock hard dick is pressed against his thigh.

“That’s not,” a cute little flush creeps up his cheeks, and he decides to use kissing tactics to not have to finish that sentence. 

But Stiles is nothing if not persistent, so when the kiss starts tracking off towards his neck, he wonders, “that’s not what you were going to say. So what were you going to say?” fingers slipping into the handles of Derek’s jaw to aim his gaze.

His eyes are soft, and seriously every single color that the tattoos are showing off, are being reflected back from his irises, and it’s so cool that Stiles forgets for a minute to breathe. Then he really forgets how to breathe, because Derek! Freaking! Werewolf tough guy! Hale! says, “I love you.”

And it’s not like Stiles didn’t already come to that conclusion on his own, but it’s a totally different thing when it’s spoken. Totally different. As in, his entire scalp is tingling, and his body is gone right up to that cloud again, and if Derek’s bulky weight wasn’t holding him down he’s certain he’d be on the moon already, and he almost says something stupid and snarky, like, ‘well I already said it first so…’ instead he actually has lost words for long enough to reconsider his knee jerk reaction, and he whispers, “I love you too.”

And. Holy. Hale. It is too much to put into his head with all the other things that are happening right now, but Derek smiles. It’s so soft and intimate, and fucking brilliant. And Stiles is absolutely, positively certain that he has never in his entire life or any of his other lives if the the whole predestined thing is to be believed, smiled at anyone else in the whole history of ever the way he’s smiling at Stiles right now. 

That is a lot to process. But apparently not for his dick. Because his dick is standing at full attention once again, and now realizing that Derek is still fully dressed. Which is a super bummer. Nudging and pressing and using caveman speak to get him to lean up enough to remove both their shirts, Stiles very pointedly slides his hands under Derek’s shorts and right onto his bare asscheeks, pushing at the shorts like they’re made out of steel instead of poly/cotton, giving him all the time in the world to say no, tell him to knock it off, tell him his body is his temple and Stiles has to ask to enter. Um, except not the entering part. Stiles wants to be entered. By Derek. Not the other way around. Or is it the other way around? Oh shit, what if Derek is a preferred…

“Stiles,” Derek is concerned, it is all over his face.

“Yep. Here. Still here.”

“And I can smell your gears burning.”

“Yeah, I think I need a new clutch,” he grips as hard as he can on Derek’s asscheek.

“Smooth.”

“I thought so.”

“And what else did you think?” he wonders when Stiles takes too long to begin speaking again.

“I was thinking,” his hands are having a hard time deciding what to land on, where to hold, and how to grasp now that his brain is revving back up into overdrive, “um, about the sex.”

The eyebrows clearly read, ‘and?’

“What if we’re not,” it kind of trails off and suddenly being pinned by the big brute is too much and Stiles want to rip his skin off and run through the Preserve screaming.

Derek very gently and silently understands all the warning signs and he eases up, letting Stiles free to roam. 

“What if we’re not,” it trips out again, the nervous energy has to be moved out, so he paces, forgetting the whole nudity thing, or maybe not caring, he’s not really sure. Probably not caring, actually, it’s Derek after all, “compatible. In the sack. What if we’re not compatible as far as preferred um, you know,” he doesn’t really want to let on to how much internet porn he’s watched, but, “top or bottom?”

“Me?”

“What?”

He’s lounging back against the wall, his arm bent and folded behind his head, looking all casual as casual can be with his shorts on all cock-eyed exposing the dip of his pelvis and the lines of his lowest ab muscles. That V that is pointing right at his wondrous dick. Stiles’s eyes get caught on that for a moment, the way he glistens with a sheen of sweat just from the time they were pressed together earlier, and now they’re just very wow.

Oh. He’s talking.

“My eyes are up here, Derek,” Stiles tells him with a smirk as he lets his gaze drift and linger on whatever bare parts of Derek he feels so inclined to linger on, before finally meeting his eyes.

Big Guy is smiling again, and that is something that Stiles will never, ever get used to seeing, and if he does, it will never stop being so breathtaking, “I prefer to top,” Derek tells him, for probably the second time. Maybe the third, “but we are absolutely not doing anything that you don’t want to do.”

“I do! I mean, I,” his hand rises to scratch at the back of his neck, he shuffles a little on his feet. Because he could probably convey more uncertainty in his body language if he really tried, “I think I do. Want to try bottoming. All of it. Really. I want to try all of it. I just am not actually sure if I’m ready. Even after all the prodding and urging, and…”

Derek cuts him off with an amused snort.

“What?”

“We’re not just jumping into penetration.”

“Penetration just came out of your mouth. Your mouth that just swallowed my load.”

“Yep,” his eyes are twinkling, his hand drops from behind his head, open-palmed in the air between them. 

Oh, he wants Stiles to take that, and sit down with him. And talk. Like adults. Instead of a nervous virgin teenager, “but I am a nervous virgin teenager.”

“I know,” he waves that hand in the air, willing Stiles to take it with his magic werewolf powers of convincing (or maybe with his bare naked chest and abs), so Stiles takes the steps over and sits firmly beside his hip. Even if he wants to climb into his lap and live there forever. Folding those big, warm, calloused fingers around Stiles’s. Softness in every nook and cranny of his eyes, “I’m not going to do anything that you’re not ready for.”

“I know, I just…”

His free hand rises, index finger landing on Stiles’s lips to shut him up. Stiles makes his mad face and licks Derek’s finger in retaliation. But keeps his mouth shut. For now.

“We have time. I’m not going anywhere. I want to take things slow. Even when you think you’re ready, I want to slow it down,” he admits without breaking eye contact.

“Oh,” Stiles breathes. Not that it wasn’t already obvious by the months of just-add-friction they’ve been doing, “no, yeah, I mean. I knew that.”

“Being eighteen isn’t just some magic number that makes you ready for sex,” and there’s some blinking sign hanging over Derek’s head saying all the things that he would never say. Like, ‘Kate Argent royally fucked me up when I was still just a kid and I’d never do that to you, and even if I never intend to do that to you, I still want to really be on the safe side and make sure you’re good and ready, and I’m not taking any kind of advantage with my insane amount of sex appeal’. Or something like that.

“I know. I totally know that,” Stiles deflates, landing on Derek’s chest, tucking himself to as small as possible and basically scrambling into Big Guy’s lap, “I think I’m ready, I’m just nervous.”

“Yep,” Derek’s exhale stirs the hair on top of Stiles’s head, “hence the taking it slow.”

“You mean slow, like hand jobs, and blow jobs, and no one penetrates anyone’s butt until they’ve become pro at all the other things?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” with an edge of amusement in his tone. His hand rubbing a soothing circle on Stiles’s lower back. 

“Okay. Sounds like a deal. But I’m still going to bother you, so much.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“You’re a cheeseball,” lifting his head to soften the blow by pressing a steamy-ass kiss (or sloppy and overenthusiastic kiss) against Derek’s lips. Sloppy and overenthusiastic could also be words used to describe the following attempt at reciprocating that blow job. But when all is said and done, both parties have blown their loads (again, in Stiles’s case) and all is well that ends with a blown load. Or two.


	19. Power Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think this warrants an E rating. But behold the smutty chapter coming at you with bottom Stiles (he's over 18).

Power Point

Derek watches his hand trail over Stiles’s arm, the sparks and flames that rise and fall with every move he makes. His entire body is nearly glowing in reds for passion. His muscles undulating in the rhythm being set by his pelvis. The moon’s fingers spreading through the leaves of the forest above them, are dimmed by the sight of his lover looming over him. 

Derek’s back is cool, against the dirt and grass, the sound of the creek slowly dragging past them beside him. The soft grunts that Stiles is making, and probably doesn’t even realize it.

July is coming to a close, the heat of the summer at it’s peak, making everything around him burn and ache for Autumn’s cooler nights and refreshing breeze. But everything inside of him wants to stop, stop time here, stay forever. Only a few more weeks before Stiles leaves for college. Though he’s been putting on a brave front, telling everyone he’s ready, he’s excited, he’s going to smash it. And Derek has been supportive and maybe a little forceful in urging him that it’s the right choice, that they’ll be fine, everyone will still be here waiting for him when he gets back. That he can visit on weekends, Derek can deal with a dorm from time to time, Stiles doesn’t have to be the only one making weekend trips. 

Isaac and Erica have decided to attend the local community college, Boyd got offered a full-time position at the ice rink that he intends to keep for awhile before he decides what he wants to do for real life. Scott, like the lost puppy that he is, has latched on to Allison and is headed out for a gap year. Whatever that means, Derek can’t really decipher. Lydia is headed to MIT. 

They’re all going to turn out just fine. Somehow Derek agreed to let Stiles update the loft with the technology to keep in touch. Derek hates the extra buzzing that exists now in his life. But he’s certain he’ll come to appreciate it once Stiles is gone, once he can’t just run across town to get to him. Even if he’s certain he could shift and make quick work of the miles between Beacon Hills and Stanford. It’s the showing up naked on campus that would throw a wrench into that plan.

He realizes too late, that Stiles has stopped grinding, and is just hovering over him, staring.

“What?”

“Is it bad?”

“What?! No,” his hands dart out to grab hold of Stiles’s where they’ve been braced on his chest, “I’m distracting myself,” feeling a smile rising, “so I don’t blow it too soon. This,” stroking one hand up his arm, watching the lights under his skin stir at Derek’s touch, “is incredible. You okay?”

“Yeah, totally fine, one-hundred percent,” there’s something a little off in his smile, but not in his scent.

“You sure, if it’s getting…”

“Nope,” he backs up his answer with a grind that makes Derek’s world spin, “I’m fine,” now the smile is full-fledged smirk.

Derek responds by dragging him down towards his chest, capturing his mouth, letting his hands wander, the sparks dancing off his flesh nothing compared to the sparks colliding in Derek’s lids as he allows himself to be fully enveloped in this moment, with his mate. 

His mate. Derek’s mate. Who is the most beautiful thing Derek has ever seen. Inside and out. He feels himself smile when the kiss breaks, when Stiles leans his forehead against Derek’s and admits with a strained voice, “you should probably stop distracting yourself.”

“Why’s that?” hands falling to his hips, holding him still to grind up into him. Stiles throws his head back unconsciously, the moonlight erupting across every tendon, making Derek surge forward, taking his neck between his lips.

“Oh,” a surprised, breathless moan exits Stiles’s lips when Derek flips them, Stiles against the ground, hands trailing up his arms, entwining fingers and pressing down into the rich dirt beneath them. 

Stiles’s legs are wrapped around his hips already, his mouth open and panting out the most beautiful sounds Derek has ever heard. He dips into his neck, grinding his hips without much in and out, knowing it’s going to be too much too quickly if he lets himself go. And he doesn’t need to, he’s been lingering on the verge of orgasm ever since Stiles lowered himself slowly onto Derek’s cock. Forcing himself to hold back, not wanting it to be over, now that they’ve finally gotten here. 

The curl of Stiles’s fingers around his, the heat of his thighs, the slick of sweat between their chests, and the steady, pleasure soggy beat of his heart that Derek can hear in his own ears. 

“I’m,” Stiles gasps, his body doing all it can to grip to Derek, his chest rising off the ground, belly hollowing out as his hips tilt, forcing the movement he’s craving. He has no reason to finish that sentence, Derek can feel the tide, he can see the glow, and every spark is lifting off him and swirling around in the air before it climbs the trees like vines of lights. 

Pressing into Stiles as his breath cuts off once more, his head tips, lips desperate for Derek’s. He obliges, burying himself in the heat and comfort of his mate. Feeling every pulse emitted from them both, as they rise and fall together. 

He doesn’t want to pull out, doesn’t want to get up, doesn’t want to let go. The kisses turn from passionate to lazy, Stiles’s legs fall open, slipping off Derek’s hips and landing in the dirt, his feet still digging into Derek’s ankles. Hands clenching and unclenching, Derek releases them, realizing now that he probably held them there long enough for pins and needles to set in, “sorry,” mumbling against wet lips.

“For what?” Stiles drags back, far enough to look at his eyes, pure confusion in the depths of his irises, “every single part of that was perfect. Even the dirt in my ass crack,” he shakes his arms out beside him then plops them down on Derek’s back. He can feel the swirls of his triskelion coiling tighter under his fingers, Stiles doesn’t feel it yet, and before Derek can twist out of his grip, or get a word of warning out, it burns through his skin, twines down Stiles’s wrists, spreads down his arms.

Stiles’s eyes widen, his mouth falling open and quiet while he watches the ink twist and dance down his arms, spreading over his shoulders and disappearing behind him.

“Shit,” Derek sighs, leans into Stiles’s neck with a huff of defeat before he rolls off him, keeping his hands flat on his hips when he breaks their connection point. Watching a pulse of black pain slide up his forearms while Stiles is busy trying to twist and turn, wanting to see where the ink landed.

“Shit? Why shit? What’s,” he twists the other way, fully seated now, next to Derek where he’s put his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees, “what is it?” this time he turns, showing Derek the new tattoo. A spirit spot, or power point. One that looks awfully familiar. The only difference is that it shimmers, “Derek?”

He watches his hand rise, reaching out to trace over the triskelion that’s shimmering light blues underneath Stiles’s luminescent flesh, “it’s…”

“It’s you? Isn’t it? It’s you. It’s your,” his voice trails off, only long enough to lick his lips, eyes wide, “it’s yours. I’m yours. I’m officially… did we just get werewolf married or something? Deflowering me also means I’m your magical husband or something? I’m marked as yours forever after you put your dick in my ass? Is that what this is? Because I’d really be yours forever anyway, we already established that, but I mean, a heads up would have been…”

“I didn’t know when,” Derek clears his throat, “when it would happen. Not the sex,” he clarifies, though he didn’t know when that would happen either. After all the nervous energy made earlier attempts fail and turn into other types of mutual satisfaction, Derek has been more than fine with that. And he didn’t plan on this being the night, just planned on a late picnic dinner after a day of hanging out by the creek, alone finally. Thought they might hang out and listen to the crickets, owls, and the rushing of the creek with the constant thrum of Stiles’s voice as he chattered on about this lesson or that plan for school, and whatever else seems to always be filling his head and leaking out of his mouth. Things that Derek has gotten used to, but never will get tired of. 

“So I take it, this means something more than we have matching tats?”

“Nothing you didn’t already know,” he admits, looking at the throbbing of colors, moving in the pattern of Stiles’s beating heart, “just the sealing of that, I guess.”

“Of what? The whole soulmates thing? It’s just a sealing of the soulmates? So it’s not like I just stole your tattoo, your family crest, your old heirloom and I look like a poser or something, it’s like an actual sealing of fate? That is, I mean, this whole thing is, like, I can’t even, I keep wondering when I’ll wake up from this super awesome dream and just be boring old me again with no friends and annoying habits and too much energy, and no super hot boyfriend/soulmate/foxywolf. But I keep not waking up and it’s been a really long ass dream with too many details to keep being like a recurring dream, and I just don’t remember my reality or something. So it has to be real. I just, you know, sometimes,” his hand darts up and he makes a motion like a bomb going off, “mind-blown,” except that it’s Stiles. So an actual firework explodes from his fingertips and shoots up into the sky, “um. Oops.”

Derek can’t help but laugh, and when he does, Stiles’s face goes soft, his eyes twinkling in the reflection of his tattoos, fingers reaching over to grip Derek’s chin, guiding him back to his lips softly. Lingering for a long time before he pulls out and admits, “I like it. The whole soulmates thing,” a smile rising that’s playful and lacking any and all innocence when he produces a shimmering silver flower from his groin, plucks it, and holds it out to Derek, “all yours Big Guy,” emitting a laugh that makes Derek grin, and forces him to wipe the smugness off his face by sealing lips to lips. 

“You’ve ruined me now, you know,” Stiles whispers when he climbs back into Derek’s lap, wrapping around him in every way possible, “all I will ever think about from this moment forward is where, how, and when we will be having sex. And that grunt, that glorious grunting grumbling thing you did at the very end there that you thought you hid in my neck, that was amazing Derek,” his hands are flat on Derek’s shoulder-blades, face lingering so close that Derek can see every hue in his eyes even in the darkness of the night, “I want to hear that noise all day every day, but that would mean we’d have to bang all day every day, and I think that’s possible for you, but probably not for measly old human me. But I wonder if I can find any spells to cast, any magics to magic, any incantation to uh, incant? That would make me capable of all day every day sex. ‘Cause right now, I want to do it again, but I don’t think I can for at least twenty-four hours.”

Derek nods, his hand on the nape of Stiles’s neck taking tiny hints of pain from his mate’s body. Not pain so much as soreness. 

“And when I’m sitting in class, oh man, I don’t want to go to school now! At all! That means at least five days of the week away from you and I don’t…”

“You’ll make friends.”

“Oh, yeah, like all the mass amounts of friends I made through the course of my entire schooling career.”

“College is different.”

“How would you even…” it trails off, a heavy sigh, flush in his cheeks, “sorry. Have you ever wanted to go back and finish up school?”

“I liked school,” Derek shrugs, letting his hands begin to wander every soft surface of the pliant body in his arms, “the learning part. Not the noise and people part.”

“So online courses, there’s this really cool thing called internet,” he says it slowly, sounding out every letter separately. Glee rising in his eyes. Derek swats his bare ass in retaliation, “into spanking, huh? I could get on board… nope, couldn’t because of all the superhuman strength, totally couldn’t get on board with that. Classes, Derek. Classes that can be taken and completed online, there are entire colleges that exist online only, they have zero physical campuses. So you’d be all alone with all the information and none of the smells of all the other students and yeah, I wouldn’t like being a werewolf in school either. I don’t even like being me in school.”

“I thought sex might shut you up.”

“Maybe if you do it again,” his face does something that resembles a wink, he’s getting better at it, but it still makes Derek laugh. 

“Tomorrow. Maybe,” tipping his head back to get a long look at Stiles’s face. He looks content. And gorgeous.

“Well then tomorrow, maybe, you have a deal,” he tries another wink. When Derek’s mouth opens to laugh, he darts into it, instead swallowing the sound and melting into a puddle of finally exhausted and quiet stillness in Derek’s embrace.


	20. Don't Call The Wolf From The Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nie wywołuj wilka z lasu = don’t call the wolf from the forest (or, don't tempt fate).

Don’t Call The Wolf From The Forest

Stiles knows he’s dreaming immediately when the note is in the bottle, his fingers slipping the old, dirtied glass out of the holder, patting it against his palm until the note is reachable. The small wooden boat sailing in the water that flows in after he removes the note. He knows that writing. A smile rises on his face when he reads the same note, ‘meet me at home’, but this time it's different.

He starts off at a steady trot, knowing nothing pressing is waiting as the forest around him swirls in bright lights and sparkling hues of magic. Fireworks, flowers that are blooming out of season, fairies, dragons, and a castle popping out all around him. They fade as soon as he passes them. 

He knows where he’s going even if it’s a place he’s never been. Or maybe a place he’s been, but hasn’t seen it like this. It’s not the loft, it’s not his childhood home, it’s not the old Hale house. It’s beyond that. It’s deeper into the Preserve. 

A narrow, two-track road with heavy green leaves reaching across overhead like hands cupping a beer belly, bits of sky like a patchwork quilt revealing and hiding again when the breeze blows. It opens up to a house. A log cabin. A rolling hill that drops off towards the creek. It’s a sight to be seen. Crowded with berry bushes and fruit trees, flowers pouring out of window boxes. A wrap-around porch, one end of it screened in, a shelf packed full of books and a reading nook inclosed. 

His fingers trail over tiger lilies and daisies as he walks down the hill alongside the house. He stops in the front yard, looking back with a grin as he takes in the entirety of windows. Windows letting all the light in, at all times of day. The moonroof that must be situated over the master bedroom. 

Closing his eyes, he lets the sound of the creek at his back filter into his mind, the way the wind rustles the leaves of the giant maple beside the house. Even in dreams, he can still feel the power of the Nemeton from this distance. 

His eyes startle open when he hears the screen door slam. The sound of his own voice, the words too far away to hear clearly, but the words don’t matter anyway. What matters is the rest of the vision. Stiles walking out of the house, a young child on his hip, her smile crooked and contagious, her hand reaching out to flick water droplets at the ensemble behind them. That ensemble being Derek, with two kids tucked under each arm and a sour look on his face, until the water droplets sprinkle him and he stifles a smile to reprimand the child. 

Stiles feels his face respond as he watches, a smile that he refuses to wipe off while the family descends the stairs, arguing and gabbing, all life and laughter and love. He doesn’t stop smiling until long after they’ve piled into the car, the two younger children strapped down tight in carseats, the older girl in a booster. Derek scowling when Stiles races him to the driver’s seat. And wins!

He takes a deep breath, lets it all mingle in his mind, wondering how they got there, when a presence suddenly appears at his side. A familiar one, calming and easy. Her voice embedded in every lobe of his brain, “it’ll be yours Mischief. It won’t come easy,” her eyes are sparkling when he turns to look at her. She looks peaceful, her edges starting to fade, “but nothing worth having ever does come easy,” a smile, her hand rising. There’s no pressure, no warmth, just the breeze of her against his cheek when it lands there, “I have to go.”

“You said you’d stay.”

“I know,” more of her is becoming transparent, fading like an overwatered watercolor portrait, “but you’ve already gone further than I ever could. I’m so proud of you.”

He doesn’t want her to go, his heart thuds hard in his chest, ribs beginning to feel too tight for his lungs, but he understands. Laying his hand over hers on his cheek, “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Mischief. Always. And remember,” her smile is soft, eyes dancing with amusement, “Nie wywołuj wilka z lasu,” don’t call the wolf from the forest.

“Might be a little too late for that Mom,” his voice is growing softer, starting to fade into the wind along with his mother’s face. But it feels okay. 

Stiles takes a deep breath, letting the feeling of his real body start to seep back in slowly. The feel of Derek’s chest under his cheek, the scrape of his chest hair. The heat of his hand resting flat on Stiles’s shoulder-blade. There’s a worn blanket tangled in their legs, Stiles’s thrown over Derek’s hip, pure human putty against werewolf mattress. 

He can feel the heat of the early morning sun starting to seep through the leaves above them, the sound of the creek beside them, “we should build a house here,” he mutters, turning his face to wipe a string of drool off against Derek.

“Yeah,” it rumbles in his chest, sounds like he’s been awake for awhile now.

“Yeah, and I’ll build a temple in honor of my deflowering. Right here, we’ll make mad passionate love down here every year on the anniversary of the day. We’ll do some freaky magic stuff to make it last all night long,” Derek snorts and Stiles amends, “I’ll do some freaky magic stuff to make me last all night long, I doubt you need it with all your healing skills, do those extend to refractory period? I feel like they should, and I think I know that they do, but you’re also a healthy young man, so it makes sense that your refractory period would not be an issue. And I bet if you focused you could have the stamina of a god,” a yawn interrupts his thinking and when his voice returns he takes the fork in the road, “how long do you think it’ll be before the next supernatural threat threatens our happy little bubble?”

Derek’s lips are leaning against the top of his head when he sighs, it stirs the hair and sends a shiver racing down his spine, “speaking of the sexy times, I don’t feel weird at all. I feel totally one-hundred percent normal and ready for round two. After I leave a pee on that tree over there,” he stretches, realizes the air without Derek’s insane heat bubble is mildly chilly, and decides to burrow back into his warmth immediately instead, “we’ll wait until the sun reaches us.”

When his fingers come back to life, he spreads them out over Derek’s cheek, idly pressing against the grain of stubble only to smooth it back down after, “you should just grow a beard. It’d make more sense anyway. And way less maintenance than your perfectly styled stubble,” leaning his lips to press a kiss against his chest, “It’s kind of awesome that I get to just do that.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, Derek wonders, “do what?”

“Kiss you,” finally bringing this head out of Derek’s warmth to look him in the eye, eyes that are reflecting the scene of the woods around them, “wherever, whenever I want. Oh, and however too,” there may be other things about Derek that he’ll have to approach with care, with all the care in the world, but he knows as far as kissing is concerned, Derek will never turn him down.

Derek’s hand that was on his shoulder-blade adjusts, tracing the new tattoo, the skin underneath his fingertips zapping with a new energy, it makes his entire body shudder and jolt towards Derek, like he could get any closer. Derek smiles at the reaction, soft and yearning. 

So Stiles does what Stiles does best. (Or maybe not best, yet. But he’s getting there.) Dives into his mouth without restraint. Because he can do that now. And he intends to take full advantage of that fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snip, snap, snout, this part of this tale is told out :) Thanks friends! There will be a part two to this, to explore their little family life (psst, I wrote an Mpreg, it'll be in the next work -posting on Sundays - so anyone who doesn't like Mpreg can skip that one) and get a look at Stiles after he has mastered more of his magic (or made more magical mistakes that turn out to be pretty cool), and we'll see how much of all the prophecies are correct. Part three will pick up after that, and we'll see how hard it is to raise shifter babies and mage babies (and how hilarious it can be). So hopefully I'll keep the interest for long enough to write all three parts. I hope to see you on the next one! So subscribe to the series if you're interested and since it doesn't show on stats how many people are subscribed to a series, feel free to drop me a comment :) If, of course, Mpregs and kid fics aren't on your list of interests, then thank you for reading this one, maybe I'll see you somewhere else in the future, I'm glad you joined me for this!
> 
> Thanks for making this my most subscribed to work yet (200!!!!!), don't forget to hit that kudos button before you go. Kudos are fantastic validation!


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